In the #Tenet cover feature from @PremiereFR, Nolan for the first time properly responds to the whole release date debacle (interview was when film was still out July 17):

"I only have one thing for sure: the film will be ready. From our end in any case, it's almost finished >

> and we can release it as soon as cinemas reopen. [...] Again, #Tenet's release date is beyond my control. What I can tell you, however, is that quote from Richard Gelfond [IMAX CEO] is inaccurate. I am a fierce advocate for cinemas, I have always been, and what he meant here >

> is that I'm speaking up for the survival of film culture in general."

Nolan suggests Gelfond was "presumably" referring to Nolan's Washington Post op-ed, "at the start of the pandemic, I felt the need to make this point. I wanted to emphasise that behind the films, there >

> are people who work to release them, to bring them to light. Exhibitors, projectionists, ushers, cinema workers... Cinema is not just about the glamour, the studio and the stars. And I wanted to emphasise that without these thousands of people who welcome audiences to theatres>

> who make the vision of these films possible, my work as a director remains incomplete. One has to remember that the war against the virus was going to affect exhibitors and the people who work in cinemas. That was the point of that piece!"

#Tenet

h/t @sallyvg #Tenet

For reference re: the comments that Nolan is attenpting to refute here https://variety.com/2020/film/news/imax-earnings-coronavirus-tenet-1234594049/