It’s a weird time for movies. Virtually every blockbuster slated for b🌺ox office release over the past few months went straight to VOD or saw major delays. Christopher Nolan’s upcoming WWII-era espionage film, Tenet, falls under the 💙ladder. Originally set to hit theaters on July 17th, Tenet resisted delay for an impressive amount of time. But, like the rest of the industry, Warner Bros. eventually caved. 💧After two delays,♐ Tenet will debut on August 12th.
Tenet’s 220 m🐲illion dollar budget also makes it Nolan’s most expensive project to date. Naturally, Warner Bros. isn’t willing to forgo theatrical release. To stoke audience interest in the midst of a pandemic and near industry collapse, Tenet’s marketing team was forced to look for n𒉰on-traditional ways of spreading awareness. Th♒ey found Fortnite’s Party Royale Island.
Nolan’s fan base consists mostly of teens an🎀d twenty-🃏somethings whose favorite movie is The Dark Knight, making Fortnite’s summer movie series the perfect platform to🏅 reach their target demo. A trailer for Tenet debuted in-game, followed by viewing parties for 🌟three of Nolan’s most popular fil𝕴ms: Batman Begins, Inception, and The Prestige.
With t♉heater’s closed in many pa💝rts of the country for the foreseeable future, Fortnite’s Movie Nite event is the closest most can get to the big screen without posing a risk to personal and public safety. To keep players onlin🌜e and provide a stand-in for꧋ the almost forgotten movie-going experience, here are three movies Fortnite should consider for their next screening.
Arrival
Denis Villeneuve’s upcoming adaptation of Frank Herbert’s sci-fi epic, Dune, will be his first major film since 2017’s Blade Runner 2049. Emblematic of just how hotly anticipated Dune is, . In a similar way that Nolan’s previous films were featured as a priming agent for Tenet, showing some of Villeneuve’s past work is a great way to increase awareness for Dune. With a roster of incredible projects to choose from (Prisoners, Incendies, Blade Runner 2049, Sicario, Polytechnique), landing on a favorite isn’t an easy task.
The French filmmaker's action-packed thriller, Prisoners, seems like an obvious choice for the Fortnite community based on its widespread popularity and themes of violence, but 🐷its two-and-half-hour runtime and R rating make it a 💟bit of a stretch for a kid-friendly game.
Arrival is a worthy substitute. Th💦isꦜ cerebral, drama-laced alien thriller is an instant sci-fi classic and, along with Blade Runner 2049, is a brilliant illustration of Villeneuve’s world-building capabilities ahead of a film that will rely heavily on its world-building elementꦰs—an aspect of David Lync﷽h’s 1894 adaptation of Dune that severely stunted the final product.
The Meg
Jon Turteltaub’s The Meg is a movie about a big shark. As more of the Fortnite island descend♔s below sea ൲level to be invaded by man-eating sharks, an action-packed movie about the ocean’s fiercest predator is a requirement. There is no shortage of “shark movies” to choose from. From the classic carnage of Jaws to the unabashed hilarity of Sharknado, there’s at least a handful of noteworthy shark-as-antagon𒀰ist films each decade.
The Meg makes the most sense for Fortnite. Featuring Jason Statham in a canonica☂l, steely faced rol🎃e, The Meg would look great on Risky Reels’ silver screen. No shark has reigned beneath the surface of Earth’s oceans in greater fashion than the prehi𒊎st💃oric Megalodon. The movie was a smash hit, pulling in close to half-a-billion dollars. People want to see a 60-foot shark. It’s not rocket science. Considering the aquatic theme of Fortnite’s latest season, The Meg feels like a must.
John Wick
One of the game’s most identifiable skins and the subjec🔯t of its own game mode, John Wick is practically part of Fortnite’s DNA. T🥀he Season-3, battle-bus prize instantly conjures images of Drake being revived by Ninja fourteen times in a single game. The garb wasꩲ introduced, like many of Fortnite’s cos💟metic items, as an advertising device—signaling the upcoming release of John Wick: Chapter 3. With officially in the works, it’s time for Fortnite to bring back the cult cla꧃ssic and christen its in-game influence with𝐆 an official screening. Any of the chapters will do.