Information reaching Kossyderrickent has it that Christopher Nolan says he’s absolutely down to work with Warner Bros again.
The “Oppenheimer” director, whose latest blockbuster starring Cillian Murphy was distributed by Universal, said in a Variety cover story that his feud with Warner Bros. is now “water under the bridge.”
Nolan parted ways with the studio in 2021 after Warners shifted its entire film slate that year to a day-and-date hybrid release model with streaming on HBO Max. Nolan said at the time, “Some of our industry’s biggest filmmakers and most important movie stars went to bed the night before thinking they were working for the greatest movie studio and woke up to find out they were working for the worst streaming service.”
Over the past two decades, comic book adventures subsumed the movie business, with studios churning out an assembly line of sequels and spinoffs featuring superpowered heroes. But “Oppenheimer” reveals that audiences will turn out in record numbers for darker, more complex stories. That is, if they’re told with the epic flair that Nolan has honed in movies like “The Dark Knight” and “Dunkirk.” And it’s giving other filmmakers hope.
“Not only did ‘Oppenheimer’ work, but it seemed to work in defiance of received wisdom,” says Damien Chazelle, the Oscar-winning director of “La La Land.” “Before I even saw the film, it felt like one of those test-case scenarios. All around the industry, a lot of people were saying, ‘This is not what the audience wants — it’s a bummer, and they just want escapism.’ And they were all wrong. So that makes its success all the sweeter.”
“It’s water under the bridge,” Nolan said of his dispute with Warner Bros. Then-CEO Jason Kilar is no longer with the studio; instead, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav oversees co-film chiefs Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy. His last film for the studio, “Tenet,” was subject to repeated delays during the pandemic before eventually releasing in August 2020; the film struggled theatrically to recoup its budget.
When asked if Nolan would work with Warner Bros. again, he said, “Oh yeah, absolutely. Pam and Mike and Zaslav, they’re trying to do some great things with that studio, which is encouraging to see.”
De Luca previously told Variety that Warner Bros. is “hoping to get Nolan back.”
Nolan is something of an authority on the apocalypse. After all, “Oppenheimer,” his look at J. Robert Oppenheimer, the architect of the Atomic Age, is one of the most-seen films of this or any year. The three-hour, R-rated drama where the action mostly unfolds in laboratories and congressional hearings has grossed nearly $950 million globally, more than almost any recent Marvel movie. In the process, it’s reshaping Hollywood’s idea of what constitutes blockbuster entertainment.