Christopher Nolan will make his next movie with Universal after falling out with Warner Bros.
- Universal has landed Christopher Nolan's next movie.
- Warner Bros. has been involved with all of Nolan's films for nearly two decades, until now.
- Nolan was critical of Warner Bros.' decision to release its movies this year to theaters and HBO Max simultaneously.
Filmmaker Christopher Nolan is ending his nearly 20-year partnership with Warner Bros.
Universal will finance and release the "Tenet" director's next film, Universal confirmed to Insider on Tuesday. Deadline was the first to report the news. The movie will be about J. Robert Oppenheimer and the making of the atom bomb. It will have a $100 million production budget, according to Variety.
Warner Bros. has been involved in some capacity with all of Nolan's films since 2002's "Insomnia," including last year's "Tenet." But Nolan was critical of parent company WarnerMedia's decision to release all of its 2021 films simultaneously in theaters and on the streaming service HBO Max.
"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," he told The Hollywood Reporter.
Speculation has swirled since then that Nolan, who is a vocal supporter of movie theaters, would take his next film to another studio.
Netflix even threw its hat in the ring. The company's film chief Scott Stuber told Variety that the streaming giant had been having conversations with Nolan to land his next movie.
"If and when he comes up with his new movie, it's about: Can we be a home for it, and what would we need to do to make that happen," Stuber said. "He's an incredible filmmaker. I'm going to do everything I can. In this business, I've learned you need to have zero ego. I get punched and knocked down and get back up."
Netflix has attracted other high-profile filmmakers like Martin Scorsese and Spike Lee, and has shown its willing to give movies exclusive theatrical releases before they are available to stream.
But Universal, which has been committed to shortened but exclusive theatrical windows during the pandemic - save for a few key releases such as the upcoming "Halloween Kills" - won out in the end.