Box office: Christopher Nolan's Tenet hits $36 million in U.S. and crosses $250 million globally

Now playing in its third weekend in U.S. theaters, Christopher Nolan's time-inverting Tenet has only hit $36.1 million at the domestic box office. While 70% of American movie theaters have reopened amid the COVID-19 pandemic, locations in New York and Los Angeles — markets that often account for the majority of stateside tickets sales — still remain mostly closed.

However, certain L.A. theaters, including those in Orange County, are now back in business and brought in most of this weekend's domestic box-office input. "Among the highest-grossing venues, three of the top five — and five out of the top 10 — were in California despite the fact that 80% of theaters in the state are still closed," writes Variety. Internationally, the Warner Bros. release has fared a little better, crossing the $250 million mark globally. The studio, which spent around $200 million on the ambitious project, plans to let the film play and play until a significant profit is made.

A time-travel story wrapped inside of the globe-trotting espionage genre, Tenet is widely regarded as being even more complex than 2010's Inception. The blockbuster stars John David Washington, Kenneth Branagh, Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth Debicki, Dimple Kapadia, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Clémence Poésy, Himesh Patel, Michael Caine, and Martin Donovan.

Disney, meanwhile, added another $1.6 million to its domestic New Mutants haul during the movie's fourth weekend. Internationally, it raked in another $2 million. To date, the final X-Men film of the 20th Century Fox era has made $17.7 million in the U.S. and $35 million worldwide. Directed and co-written by Josh Boone (The Fault in Our Stars), the comic book-inspired flick mixes horror with superheroes. Boone and his co-writer/childhood friend, Knate Lee, took direct inspiration from the "Demon Bear Saga" by writer Chris Claremont and artist Bill Sienkiewicz.

Maisie Williams, Anya Taylor-Joy, Charlie Heaton, Alice Braga, Blu Hunt, and Henry Zaga co-star.

Niki Caro's live-action Mulan remake made an additional $6.5 million in China, where Disney+ is not widely available. That figure marks a 72% percent decline in Chinese ticket sales, which now total $36 million. Globally, the more grounded reimagining of the 1998 animated classic has brought in $57 million. While that's not anywhere near the project's $200 million production budget, Disney has not yet disclosed the number of Disney+ subscribers who decided to access Mulan early for a fee of $19.99. The film will become widely available at no charge in early December.

Yifei Liu, Donnie Yen, Tzi Ma, Jason Scott Lee, Yoson An, Ron Yuan, Gong Li, and Jet Li co-star.