With Theaters Closed, The Trailer For Christopher Nolan's 'Tenet' Debuts In Fortnite Instead

from the more-than-a-game dept

With the explosion of the video game industry and the technology that has come along with it, it's starting to get really fun to see what creative minds can do inside of the gaming realm. It's turning games into something much more than they would have been 20 years ago. Back then, games were singular in purpose: play the video game. Today they can be so much more when done right. They can be a social ecosystem. They can be economies onto themselves.

Or they can be a place to premier top tier movie trailers, in the case of Fortnite.

Tonight, a new trailer for Christopher Nolan’s upcoming film Tenet aired in Fortnite. The trailer was introduced by Geoff Keighley, because he’s the only consistency we have left in this topsy-turvy world.

Keighley introduced the trailer, shown at Fortnite’s new Party Royale hub’s movie theater. He spoke with Tenet star John David Washington about his gaming history and his role in the film. The trailer itself featured some clips we’ve seen before, but it didn’t reveal all that much more about the movie, which seems to involve time travel and Robert Pattinson.

While the trailer is now widely available, its first showing was in Fortnite. And that strikes me as both rather strange and very, very cool. There is something about layering entertainment inside other entertainment that just clicks with me. Those Minecraft builds where folks build a working computer inside the game? That's amazing to me. Those people who band together in the latest version of Skyrim just to produce a reproduction of previous Elder Scrolls games in the new engine? I love that stuff. And forward thinking media executives who want to have a little fun during a pandemic and show off a new movie trailer in a movie screen inside a popular video game? I mean, that's just cool.

And it would appear that either Nolan himself or someone on his team is interested in keeping these experiments running, given the closure of most movie theaters in the country.

The Tenet trailer ended with the words “Coming to theaters,” which seems like an awfully ambitious declaration due to, you know, the world. But just as each day brings new horrors, it also brings new possibilities to imagine, as well as Geoff Keighley telling us new things about games.

Keighley ended by announcing that there will be a screening of “an iconic Christopher Nolan film” in Fortnite this summer. (I haven’t seen a Nolan film since Memento, but it’s probably not that.)

Whatever it is, screening an entire movie inside a video game? Sounds cool to me!

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Filed Under: christopher nolan, community, covid-19, crisis, debuts, fortnite, movie trailers, tenet, video games


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  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 27 May 2020 @ 9:39pm

    When you have a game with millions of users it becomes a platform where friends can meet up
    Not just to play the game to talk, watch a movie , whatever . A game can promote a movie or host a dj set . Fortnite appeals to younger players partly cos it has cartoon like graphics its not a realistic
    Fps online game. Players can wear all sorts of strange costumes and skins. It's nice that Fortnite has a space where users can just hang out
    In the pandemic games like animal crossing are being used as social places where users can visit
    Other users islands . People are going back to gaming as a way to meet other people
    when so many places in the real world closed down

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Max (profile), 28 May 2020 @ 3:34am

    Wrong venue. Should have been premiered in that Duke Nukem 3D movie theater from 30 years ago... :P

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    PaulT (profile), 28 May 2020 @ 5:54am

    "Whatever it is, screening an entire movie inside a video game? Sounds cool to me!"

    If you are playing that game already, sure. I'm not downloading a new game just to watch an ad for something unrelated.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    bisi world (profile), 28 May 2020 @ 8:54am

    How to wear a N95 Facemask - bisiworld

    visit: <a href= https://www.bisiwortld.com/>How to wear a N95 facemask</a>

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 28 May 2020 @ 11:41am

    Techdirt has lost sight of its goal about reporting on copyright and trademark issues so they write a fucking fluff piece about screening the movie into a videogame? WTF?

    Before this past weekend, I sent in a story about how Warner Brothers had to change the name of their movie to avoid confusion with a bicycle company who owned the style of the "Tenet" name that Warner Brothers was using (Full Story here: https://www.slashfilm.com/christopher-nolans-tenet-logo-changed/).

    The story goes that the owners of "Tenet", who hold the trademark on Tenet (with the "et" reversed in the same style as the movie), understood about their trademark (which is a rare thing for a company to understand). They actually understood how trademark law works and rather than "sue" Warner Brothers, they chalked it up to coincidence and realized that they had no reason to sue since a bike company and a movie are in two different markets.

    I thought it was awesome that a company, for once, elected not to sue over this mistake.

    I sent in the story to Techdirt, and Timothy Geigner gives everyone a fucking fluff piece about a movie preview?

    I have lost all the respect I had for Techdirt.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      PaulT (profile), 28 May 2020 @ 11:16pm

      Re:

      "Techdirt has lost sight of its goal about reporting on copyright and trademark issues"

      Who ever stated that was the goal? They always written about a long list of issues.

      "I thought it was awesome that a company, for once, elected not to sue over this mistake."

      It is, but TD don't write about every story, and there's nothing I can see them adding by rewriting what you just linked to. Even if they do, TD often deliberately tracks a few days before the time a story comes out elsewhere as the aim is conversation, not breaking news. It's nice that this was resolved behind closed doors like adults and it is a shame that such behaviour is considered noteworthy, but there's no reason for it to be covered instead of the above story.

      But, doing something out of the ordinary in order to overcome problems that make standard operation impossible is a story, even if you for some reason dislike the tech used.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Châu, 30 May 2020 @ 1:22am

    Open Source Games

    If want see very creativie stuff with games, open source games and let people create awesome mods.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    ds2886115 (profile), 9 Jun 2020 @ 3:58pm

    Techdirt has lost sight of its

    I thought it was awesome that a company, for once, elected not to sue over this mistake."

    It is, but TD don't write about every story, and there's nothing I can see them adding by rewriting what you just linked to. Even if they do, TD often deliberately tracks a few days before the time a story comes out elsewhere as the aim is conversation, not breaking news.
    http://paitotogel.link/

    link to this | view in chronology ]


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