When Christopher Nolan‘s “Oppenheimer” hits theaters next month, it marks the first film by the director not produced by Warner Bros. in nearly 20 years. That’s because Nolan left the studio for Universal Pictures after he condemned Warner Bros. for releasing his 2020 blockbuster “Tenet” in theaters and HBO Max simultaneously. But with the COVID-19 pandemic over and former CEO Jason Kilar gone, Indiewire (via Variety) reports that Warner Bros. thinks there’s a chance Nolan returns to the studio.
“We’re hoping to get Nolan back,” Michael De Luca told Variety in its recentcover story. “I think there’s a world.” De Luca and Pam Abdy serve as co-CEOs for Warner Bros. Film Group. In the post-“Tenet” fallout, Variety reports that Nolan “received a seven-figure royalty check from Warner Bros. within the past eight months” to smooth things over between director and studio. It appears to have worked, as Nolan reportedly did some post-production work for “Oppenheimer” on the Warner Bros. lot.
Nolan’s relationship with Warner Bros. began in 2002 when the studio distributed the director’s 2002 thriller “Insomnia.” Since then, they had a highly successful partnership, with mega hits including “The Dark Knight” trilogy, “Inception,” “Interstellar,” and “Dunkirk,” as well as “The Prestige.” But for Nolan’s latest, he faces off against his old studio on opening weekend. “Oppenheimer” opens against Greta Gerwig‘s “Barbie” on July 21, which Warner Bros. hopes will be the summer’s biggest movies. And it might be, as “Oppenheimer,” which stars Cillian Murphy as the creator of the atomic bomb, will be Nolan’s first film rated R since “Insomnia.” Meanwhile, “Barbie” has a PG-13 rating.
But regardless of who wins that opening weekend, Warner Bros. remains hopeful Nolan will return to the studio after “Oppenheimer.” Abdy said that her company is “through the worst of it” post-COVID-19, and its merger with Discovery, which now sees David Zaslav as Warner Bros. Discovery CEO, is off to a strong start. “After the AT&T years, everyone felt a bit of battered child syndrome,” co-CEO De Luca went on. “We have one of the best film libraries in existence, so we started inviting our filmmakers to come and choose a movie that inspires them and talk about it with our staff.”
So will Nolan get an invite like that extended to him? Maybe both he and Warner Bros. want to wait and see what happens on the weekend of July 21 first. And Nolan has provided no hints on what his next film after “Oppenheimer” would be anyway; don’t expect any news on that front for at least another year or two.