Christopher Nolan’s new film with Matt Damon was rejected by Warner Bros.

In 2020, the release of Christopher Nolan’s $200 million film “Tenet” was in jeopardy, facing an indefinite delay as the Covid pandemic took hold, shuttering theaters. During that summer, the director, a champion of the big-screen experience, wanted his spy thriller to be the first major tentpole to premiere in reopened cinemas. The former head of Warner Bros. agreed. Entertainment’s Ann Sarnoff and studio head Toby Emmerich agreed to move forward with a theatrical release as long as Nolan waived certain fees.

Following WarnerMedia’s 2022 merger with Discovery and the regime shake-up that followed, newly installed motion picture group presidents Michael DeLuca and Pamela Abdi were eager to see Nolan return to the studio; He defected to Universal nine months before they arrived to make “Oppenheimer.” Nolan had a long history with the studio dating back to 2002’s Insomnia. As a goodwill gesture, Warner Bros. wrote him a seven-figure check and returned the “Tenet” royalties he had waived.

Unfortunately, this gesture failed to bring Nolan back. For a man who still lived in the same modest house in the Hollywood Hills and was known to drive a 20-year-old Honda, money didn’t matter, and an extra few million didn’t move the needle. Instead, the Oscar winner and his producing partner and wife, Emma Thomas, chose to take his next project, starring Matt Damon, to Universal and its brilliant leader, Donna Langley.

“What matters [to Nolan] Will you release this right? Will you have the right marketing strategy? Will you get IMAX screens? Will you leave me alone to make the movie I want to make? All of these things he knows he’s got with Universal [on ‘Oppenheimer’]says Stephen Galloway, dean of Chapman University’s Dodge College of Film and Media Arts. “Why would he do that? no Go to Universal?”

However, Warner’s offer highlights Nolan’s unique position in Hollywood, which has struggled to cultivate the next generation of auteurs who win Oscars and occupy movie theaters. In fact, Nolan is part of a dying breed of directors with household names. This small complex includes Quentin Tarantino and James Cameron. Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese maintained a similar status, but saw box office returns decline even as their production budgets held steady. (Spielberg’s $100 million remake of “West Side Story” grossed $76 million worldwide toward the end of the coronavirus, while Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon” cost $215 million but grossed $159 million.) worldwide last year). Filmmakers. Greta Gerwig and Ryan Coogler have distinct styles and boast big hits with “Barbie” ($1.45 billion) and “Black Panther” ($1.35 billion). However, both films were based on well-known intellectual properties.
What Nolan achieved in Oppenheimer was a miracle. The Best Picture winner took in nearly $1 billion — $976 million to be exact — despite its R rating, three-hour running time and focus on a historical figure who is “the least likely money-making subject in the history of the entertainment business.” “When it comes to Nolan, his name is the brand,” notes Galloway.

“Christopher Nolan is his own intellectual property,” says box office analyst Jeff Bock. “Only a few directors are well known to the general public, and he is currently at the top of that list.”

What Nolan’s film will be like remains a mystery. It won’t be “The Prisoner,” a project with a long history at Universal that was once developed as a vehicle for the director. Sources say Nolan’s latest is not another sci-fi epic; Some speculate that it may be in the espionage genre. This isn’t a surprise considering Nolan was considering making a Bond film at one point. However, the franchise has been in limbo since Daniel Craig retired from the role of 007 with 2021’s “No Time to Die.” Plus, Nolan is a definitive director, and Bond gatekeeper Barbara Broccoli hates giving any filmmaker control .

But Nolan is not just a director. In addition to Oppenheimer, two of his films have crossed the $1 billion mark: “The Dark Knight” and “The Dark Knight Rises.”

“This isn’t someone who just happened to deliver ‘Look Who’s Talking No. 38’ or ‘Sharknado.’ This is Christopher Nolan,” Galloway says.