Forget IMAX, Watch Tenet On A Game Boy Advance Instead

Director Christopher Nolan's 2020 film Tenet was designed to be seen on the biggest screen possible, but YouTuber Wullf had an even grander plan in mind for watching the time-bending action movie. Using conversion software and emulators, Wullf shrank the 150-minute movie down dramatically into five 30-minute videos that ran at 6 frames per second, lowered its resolution to 192 x 128, and reformatted the film to run on a Game Boy Advance emulator.

That alone would have made for a funny story, but the graphic designer took the idea a step further and used his skills to transfer Tenet onto five Game Boy Advance cartridges, complete with custom labels that he had created. Why would anyone go through this much trouble to downsize a movie? Like all great ideas, Wullf's scheme was born out of spite for the director who encouraged people to watch Tenet during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"I got this idea when the whole meme was going around about how much Christopher Nolan really wanted you to go to the theatres to see this movie," Wulff said. "You know, in the middle of a global pandemic! He said: 'This is a film whose image and sound really needs to be enjoyed in your theatres on the big screen.' So I immediately thought, yes, exactly, we have to put this on the Game Boy immediately. I'll show you how I did it, so you can too if you really have to experience this movie in the worst way possible."

Nolan's likely to not be too fussed about where Tenet plays now that it has long since wrapped up its initial run in cinemas. Releasing last year in a movie market that had been decimated by the pandemic and had seen many theatres remain closed, Tenet only managed to scrape in $363 million worldwide.

It was an expensive lesson for Warner Bros. to learn, but one that led the film distributor to completely overhaul its 2021 plans and focus more on HBO Max. Major tentpole movies will all be released on the streaming service on the same day as theatres, allowing subscribers to watch upcoming films such as Godzilla Vs Kong, Dune, and Mortal Kombat from the safety of their own homes.