Christopher Nolan bids adieu to Warners Bros after 19-years

English film director, screenwriter, and producer Christopher Nolan is parting ways with Warner Bros. This separation after 19-years does not come as a surprise to Hollywood watchers. Nolan had a public fallout with Warner Bros bosses over their film release strategy. Hollywood insiders confirm that Christopher Nolan’s next film will be at Universal Pictures and is expected to get on the floors in the first quarter of 2022.

The long-term partnership

There is still no definitive word on the cast or crew for this new project. Nolan’s first film with Universal Pictures is biographical about the father of the atom bomb J Robert Oppenheimer and the role Oppenheimer played in developing the first weapon of mass destruction in the world.

The partnership between Christopher Nolan and Warner Bros dates back to 2002 with Insomnia starring Al Pacino and Robin Williams. And the ties continued till up to the release of the 2020 science fiction-thriller film Tenet starring John David Washington and our very own Dimple Kapadia.

The Batman films that Nolan made for Warner Bros, namely, The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises saw the studio rake in global earnings of $1billion each. Christopher Nolan’s public condemnation of Warner Bros for penciling in his efforts with his longtime studio in a hybrid rather than theatrical release mode for 2021 gave sufficient hints that the two would part ways.

The disagreement

Warner Bros promoted the titles that debuted in theatres for simultaneous release on the OTT platform for streaming for 31-days. Nolan, in fact, in an interview with ET Online, sometime in late 2020, disagreed with the release strategy that Warner Bros was adopting. Some of the projects that involve top stars are meant for big-screen release, the film director said, disapproving the hybrid route that Warner Bros decided to take.

Christopher Nolan even contended that the studio did not inform the stakeholders about this move, which he said was a “loss leader for the streaming service – for the fledgling streaming service.” Tenet that Warner Bros launched in theatres in September last saw the studio rake in $363.7 million.

This was the biggest Hollywood pandemic release of the year and came at a time when major studios were still not sure about theatrical releases given that the pandemic was raging. A plan announced by Warner Bros later in that all its releases in 2021 will also be on HBO Max, Nolan, a strong advocate for the theatrical experience – hit back.