Christopher Nolan made headlines when it was recently announced that his next film, an untitled historical drama about J. Robert Oppenheimer, a person behind the creation of the atomic bomb, would be distributed by Universal and not his typical partner, Warner Bros. We all know why Nolan wanted to leave WB, as it was clear he didn’t like the release strategy the studio adopted this year, with films hitting HBO Max and theaters on the same day. But why Universal? Well, according to a new THR report, Universal was just one of the major studios all asking Nolan to collaborate, and the studio that apparently said yes to all of his rather costly demands.
THR’s report claims that the biggest studios involved in the discussions with Nolan, outside of Universal, were Paramount, Sony, and Apple. But it appears that those three studios all couldn’t meet the demands that Nolan put forth. The report says that Nolan wanted a variety of things, including 20% of “first-dollar gross,” a “blackout” period where the studio wouldn’t release a film three weeks before and three weeks after this film, and a theatrical run that is 100 days (with some suggesting upwards of 130 days).
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Apple was in the mix but reportedly couldn’t agree to the long theatrical window. Paramount wasn’t really a top contender, with the report claiming that the executive shakeup at the top of the studio could have contributed to that. And Sony was right there with Universal until the end of the decision-making process, but Nolan went with the latter instead.
The filmmaker’s upcoming feature is expected to be a much smaller-scale affair than something like “Tenet,” with a budget reportedly around the $100 million level instead of the $200+ million his films can cost. Of course, the biggest unknown is just how the box office and the film industry, as a whole, is going to look in late-2023 or early-2024 when the untitled film finally hits theaters. Will it be one of the final features to have such a huge theatrical window? Will people still be excited about heading to the theaters to see a film that doesn’t have superheroes and franchise potential? We’ll find out.