Ahead of the release of Denis Villeneuve’s highly anticipated “Dune: Part Two,” Warner Bros. Pictures is bringing Christopher Nolan’s mind-bending sci-fi thriller “Tenet” back to IMAX theaters for a special one-week engagement starting Feb. 23, Jeff Goldstein, President, Domestic Distribution, Warner Bros. Pictures., announced on Thursday. Watch the trailer for the re-release in the embed above.
The re-release will give audiences another chance to see Nolan’s most complex film to date, which opened in theaters in September of 2020 in the midst of the pandemic. The film will play in 70mm IMAX, IMAX Digital, and 70mm film formats across major cities in the US, Canada, and select international markets.
As an added bonus, the “Tenet” screenings will feature exclusive footage from “Dune: Part Two.” This dovetails into the theatrical debut of Villeneuve’s sequel on March 1, also in IMAX theaters.
The move also marks a public warming of sorts between Nolan and Warner Bros. The “Inception” and “Dark Knight” filmmaker left his home studio after being rankled by the “Project Popcorn” initiative installed in 2021, in which every new release played in theaters and on HBO Max at the same time. He subsequently made “Oppenheimer” at Universal Pictures. That film earned 13 Oscar nomination including Best Picture, Adapted Screenplay and Director for Nolan.
Both Nolan and Villeneuve are passionate advocates of the theatrical experience, especially when presented in grand formats like IMAX. Nolan shot key scenes in “Tenet” with IMAX cameras, while Villeneuve utilized IMAX for numerous sequences in both “Dune” films.
“Seeing the way audiences responded to our large format presentations of ‘Oppenheimer,’ I’m thrilled that Warner Bros. is giving audiences a chance to see ‘Tenet’ the way it was intended to be seen, on the largest IMAX and large format film screens, and I’m honored to have our movie warm up the film projectors for Denis’ jaw- dropping ‘Dune: Part Two,’” Nolan said in a statement.
Villeneuve added, “As an audience member, I have always valued Chris’s forward thinking when it comes to shooting on film and especially in large formats. As directors, we are completely in sync; on ‘Dune,’ we shot several sequences for IMAX, and I simply loved it, so for ‘Dune: Part Two,’ we pushed it to 100 percent of the movie. Working with the IMAX format was the only way to capture the experience of Arrakis, Giedi Prime and the Imperium for audiences. That is why I am just as eager to see ‘Tenet’ again, but now in 70mm IMAX, the way they filmed it, to fully appreciate his vision for this incredible film.”
Villeneuve reunited with “Dune” cinematographer Greig Fraser on the sequel.
Tickets for the limited “Tenet” engagement are on sale now. In addition to the film, moviegoers will receive a collectible filmstrip from “Tenet” while supplies last.
“Dune: Part Two” tickets go on sale Jan. 26.
News of the “Tenet” rerelease was first reported by The Insneider.