As the COVID pandemic wreaked havoc on the theater industry, Warner Bros. and its then-parent company, AT&T, made a December 2020 decision that would burn several bridges in Hollywood: The studio’s entire 2021 film slate would be released on HBO Max the same day as theaters. On the surface, the decision made sense given the public health concerns at the time. However, behind the scenes, Warner Bros. executives reportedly never gave filmmakers a heads up, and that cost the studio a very powerful asset: Christopher Nolan.
While the decision didn’t affect the release of Nolan’s Tenet, which still bowed in theaters despite the pandemic, the director gave a blistering statement to The Hollywood Reporter to slam the decision.
“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 said.
Soured by the HBO Max strategy, Nolan took his new movie, Oppenheimer, to Universal thus ending a nearly two decade-long relationship. However, thanks to the merger with Discovery, Warner Bros. is under new leadership, and the studios new co-CEOs Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy would really like to bring Nolan back into the fold. The two even admitted as much in a lengthy new interview with Variety that emphasizes the studio’s re-commitment to theatrical releases:
“We’re hoping to get Nolan back,” De Luca says. “I think there’s a world.” Both executives concede that Universal Filmed Entertainment Group chairman Donna Langley is a force to be reckoned with, as she secured “Oppenheimer” after his public breakup with Warners. De Luca and Abdy remain hopeful. Two sources familiar with Nolan say that the director received a seven-figure royalty check from Warner Bros. within the past eight months. The payment was tied to his 2020 film “Tenet,” which the studio released. A source says De Luca, Abdy and Zaslav all agreed he was owed the bonus in good faith. No strings were attached, according to insiders, but the studio was partly motivated to repair that fractured relationship.
The interview also quotes Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav, who hammered home that the days of making movies for HBO Max, which is now just Max, are over.
“Not only do we want to open more motion pictures, but our theory is that we’ve got to leave them in theaters as long as possible,” Zaslav said.
Will that be enough to woo Nolan back? His reps didn’t respond to comment. However, Variety reports that he has been doing post-production work on Oppenheimer on the Warner Bros. lot, so there are potential signs of reconciliation.
(Via Variety)
