Warner Bros has extended an expensive olive branch to Christopher Nolan by giving his 2020 thriller Tenet another run in cinemas.
It was after 20 years of doing business together that Christopher Nolan decided he no longer wanted to make films with Warner Bros. Both had benefitted from the partnership to that point, but it’s no secret that Nolan was rather frustrated with the studio.
Two key reasons shone through.
Firstly, Christopher Nolan was a vocal critic of Warner Bros’ decision to send its entire 2021 theatrical slate to its streaming service on the same day the films landed in cinemas. After the announcement of that came in late 2020, Nolan famously told The Hollywood Reporter that “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”.
The second reason was said to be the release of Christopher Nolan’s 2020 puzzlebox, Tenet, which in fairness to Warner Bros it backed with a big theatrical release at a time that nobody else was really going for it due to the global pandemic. Still, the box office returns perhaps inevitably came back a little short, even counting the people who went to see the film twice to work out what the hell was going on.
Well, after watching Universal snap up Oppenheimer, which would go on to earn over $900m at the global box office and snap up the most Oscar nominations this year, it’s looking like Warner Bros is on a charm offensive where Nolan is concerned.
Already Nolan has given interviews where he suggests the ice has now thawed. But now, Warner Bros has decided to make a huge attempt to get in his good books by putting Tenet back in cinemas – in the US at least – for a week next month. It’s even put together a special trailer…
This appears to have had the desired effect, and made Christopher Nolan happy. The re-release of the film will be accompanied by new footage from Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Two, and Nolan has made jolly noises in a statement.
“Seeing the way audiences responded to our large format presentations of Oppenheimer, I’m thrilled that Warner Bros. is giving audiences a chance to see Tenet the way it was intended to be seen, on the largest IMAX and large format film screens, and I’m honoured to have our movie warm up the film projectors for Denis’ jaw- dropping Dune: Part Two”, Nolan enthused.
There’s no confirmation yet that Tenet will be back in UK cinemas too, but we’ll update this story once we know…
