After his last year’s mind-bending sci-fi thriller ‘Tenet’, Christopher Nolan is on to his next directorial project that would reportedly (via Deadline) revolve around physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, who was amongst those considered as the “father of the atomic bomb” and his role in the development of the atom bomb during World War II.
Many of you might already be aware of the much-publicized ‘difference of opinion’ between the eminent filmmaker Christopher Nolan and Warner Bros. regarding the release strategy of his last film ‘Tenet’. The film was initially slated for a theatrical release on 17th July 2020. However, owing to the pandemic, the release had to be delayed. Each delay allegedly caused a financial loss between $200,000 and $400,000 to Warner Bros. Eventually, ‘Tenet’ grossed $363 million dollars worldwide.
Christopher Nolan, being an ardent advocate of the theatrical release format, was also vocal about his disagreement with the studio pertaining to the studios’ intention for a day-and-date release strategy (theatrical and HBO Max) for its entire 2021 film slate. Although ‘Tenet’ enjoyed an exclusive initial theatrical release.
The entire episode might have left a bitter aftertaste that led Christopher Nolan to not directly take his next film to his long-time collaborator Warner Bros. Instead, as per the report, the filmmaker is in talks with several prominent studios, who are reading his next World War-II based film’s screenplay. Whether Warner Bros. is amongst those studios vying for Nolan’s next project is not confirmed yet.
In case Nolan’s next goes to any rival studio (like Universal, Sony, Paramount, Disney, etc.), this would be the first time in almost two decades when Warner Bros. wouldn’t be a distributor of Nolan’s directorial project. Prior to ‘Tenet’ and including it, almost all of Nolan’s movies including ‘Insomnia’, ‘Dark Knight Trilogy’, ‘Inception’, and ‘Dunkirk’ were distributed by Warner Bros.
While not much is known about the film’s precise plot details and cast members, it is being reported that Nolan’s former collaborator Cillian Murphy (Batman Begins, Inception, Dunkirk) might star in the film.