Christopher Nolan's 2026 Movie Announcement Proves He's Done With Warner Bros. (For Now)
by Jeremy Smith · /FilmEver since Christopher Nolan won the Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Director with his blockbuster historical drama "Oppenheimer" (four words you rarely read together), the entire film industry has been keeping a close eye on the filmmaker's next move. Nolan's creative whims have always driven speculation within the business, but this time around it wasn't just about what he would do next but where he would do it.
For almost a decade, this wasn't a concern. After his breakthrough neo-noir masterpiece "Memento" turned him into one of the hottest young directors in Hollywood, Christopher Nolan made his first studio effort, "Insomnia," at Warner Bros., and called the big house in Burbank his home for close to a decade. What changed? The Covid pandemic and then WB production chief Jason Kilar's decision in 2020, via his Project Popcorn initiative, to release the company's entire slate for the year day-and-date in theaters and on its HBO Max streaming service.
Nolan scorched Kilar and WB at the time, saying, "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." Nolan's 2020 film, "Tenet," got a full theatrical release after multiple delays on August 26 of that year, but the public's reticence to sit in theaters as millions continued to die from Covid crippled its box office.
Regardless of Kilar's rationale, Nolan was furious and took his next project, "Oppenheimer," to Universal. Upon Kilar's dismissal, Warner Bros. Discovery honcho David Zaslav and the studio's new production heads, Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy, mounted a charm offensive to bring Nolan back into the fold. Alas, last week Nolan announced that he would make his next feature at Universal. Does this mean the director is done with WB for good?
Can WB ever lure Nolan back home?
Nolan swears this isn't the case. In a November 2023 interview with Variety, the filmmaker said his animus with his former home studio was "water under the bridge," and that he was "absolutely" open to returning to WB under the new management. But he's sticking with Universal for now (with a project that is believed to be an adaptation of Patrick McGoohan's classic sci-fi TV series "The Prisoner," which he's had in development for years), and if a recent report is true, it's not hard to see why.
According to industry insider outlet Puck, De Luca persuaded Zaslav to cut Nolan a seven-figure check as a sign of good faith. Really? This doesn't sound like De Luca, who's long been known for being one of the most talent-friendly execs in the business (dating back to his protective shepherding of PT Anderson's career at New Line in the late 1990s); if he wanted to send a message of goodwill to Nolan, a seven-figure donation to Martin Scorsese's World Cinema Project would've made more sense. Or maybe he could've convinced Zaslav to release finished, yet shelved-for-tax-write-down movies like "Batgirl" and "Coyote vs. Acme." Puck also added that neither De Luca nor Abdy were granted access to the script for Nolan's movie before Universal grabbed it.
De Luca and Abdy have been able to strike deals with auteurs like Anderson and M. Night Shyamalan, but Zaslav's presence at the top is still a cause for concern from many A-list directors. Some directors feel he can't be trusted, so they're waiting to see how he handles Anderson's latest movie, especially after the historic flopping of his personally approved "Joker: Folie à Deux." Zaslav has a reputation for pettiness and pridefulness. Factor in Nolan's reportedly warm relationship with Universal chief Donna Langley, and the time just didn't seem right for a WB homecoming.