Since morphing from its tower-defense origins into a battle royale game, Fortnite continues to operate as a significant cultural mainstay. Developer Epic Games has worked to find new creative outlets to engage their player base, including pop culture brand crossovers (Star Wars and John Wick have both made an appearance) and exciting live events. Epic’s latest surprise event centers around the trailer release of Christopher Nolan’s latest sci-fi blockbuster Tenet.
In an event that included a Q&A with star John David Washington, Fortnite debuted the latest Tenet trailer to its sizable player base. This full-length trailer gives audiences a further look at the film’s high-concept time travel premise, with Washington’s character operating as a secret agent trying to prevent a potential third world war. Along with this announcement, interviewer Geoff Keighley revealed that Fortnite will also host a screening to one of Nolan’s iconic past works sometime this summer.
Take a look at the new trailer, along with Christopher Nolan’s reasoning behind the exclusive Fortnite debut (from Discussing Film).
“We were talking about our love of seeing new trailers in a theater and how sad we were that we can’t do that right now but how this could be the next best thing.”
One of the notable aspects of this trailer debut is the further reinforcement of the film’s July 17th release, with the trailer’s description confirming its planned release. Tenet’s release date has been a popular talking point of late, with many believing the project will be delayed due to growing concerns about theatrical availability. While it’s certainly a risk opening a film in the midst of the Coronavirus, a live event like this is a great method of drawing major attention to its upcoming release without having to spend significant marketing funds.
It will be fascinating to see how Tenet performs when it reaches its eventually released. Christopher Nolan’s name holds major credibility with mainstream audiences, even when he takes a chance on a high-concept premise like Inception. That being said, it’s still a mystery how well a film, even of this project’s magnitude, will perform during these unprecedented times. Either way, I am intrigued to see what Nolan has in store with his latest effort.
Are you excited about Tenet? Let us know in the comments!