See The First Images From Christopher Nolan’s New Movie Tenet

Tenet movie poster, Christopher Nolan 2020
(Image credit: (Warner Bros))

Christopher Nolan is known for the unexpected. He doesn’t want you to know what you’re getting yourself into when you buy a ticket for one of his movies. This has worked to audiences' benefit time and time again with twisty films such as Inception, Interstellar and The Prestige. This summer, this filmmaker’s next project, Tenet, is heading to theaters. Here’s the first image of the international espionage action epic starring John David Washington.

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That's not much to go on, is it? The BlacKkKlansman star is looking James Bond-esque driving a boat somewhere beautiful with Widows’ Elizabeth Debicki. Christopher Nolan told EW that Tenet is the ‘most ambitious film’ he’s ever made. The upcoming movie was filmed across seven countries, has a star-studded cast that also includes Robert Pattinson, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Kenneth Branagh and Yesterday breakout star Himesh Patel. Oh, Michael Caine of course, because it’s a Nolan movie!

Christopher Nolan teased that Tenet will cross a number of genres and include huge set pieces he’s never attempted before. The movie reportedly has a massive budget of $225 million. Robert Pattinson once called it the “craziest” thing he’s seen in years and described the script as so dense, it could be the length of three movies. Check out another image from the film, including Pattinson’s blonde look:

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The Dark Knight trilogy writer/director has also said John David Washington is “very much the hero” of Tenet. A 40-second theater-exclusive trailer debuted during IMAX screenings of Hobbs & Shaw over the summer. It had a focus on “time” – as a good number of Christopher Nolan movies have shared. The tagline “time runs out” has been thrown around and the movie’s logo is often shown with the movie title moving in a circle like hands on a clock.

It’s pretty amazing that in seven months a new Christopher Nolan movie is coming out and we have a really vague idea of what it is. These images give us something, but Tenet could go thousands of different places. And, fans are hyped about it no matter what. It shows how respected and intrigued moviegoers are about the Inception filmmaker.

Some sources report the first trailer for Tenet will drop on Thursday. According to Indiewire, rumor has it that a first look at the film will screen ahead of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, and a prologue sequence from the film will debut at select IMAX screenings of the Skywalker Saga conclusion.

Tenet is coming to theaters on July 17, 2020. Check out what other exciting movie releases are hitting theaters this summer, such as Ghostbusters: Afterlife, Jungle Cruise and Morbius, with our 2020 Release Calendar!

Sarah El-Mahmoud
Staff Writer

Sarah El-Mahmoud has been with CinemaBlend since 2018 after graduating from Cal State Fullerton with a degree in Journalism. In college, she was the Managing Editor of the award-winning college paper, The Daily Titan, where she specialized in writing/editing long-form features, profiles and arts & entertainment coverage, including her first run-in with movie reporting, with a phone interview with Guillermo del Toro for Best Picture winner, The Shape of Water. Now she's into covering YA television and movies, and plenty of horror. Word webslinger. All her writing should be read in Sarah Connor’s Terminator 2 voice over.