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Christopher Nolan requested total creative control, 100 day theatrical window, $100 million budget, 20% of first dollar gross + more for next film
- Thread starter jett
- Start date
I'm not sure if it's typical to be codified like that in a director's list of demands (though Nolan apparently had this same arrangement with WB so it's at least normal for him). That said, studios space their movies out already that there might just naturally be three-week buffers on both sides of a release?
As an example, I just looked at Disney's output in 2019, which was a really prolific year for them. And unless I missed something, I think this is everything they released theatrically that year:
- 3/8 - Captain Marvel
- 3/29 - Dumbo
- 4/17 - Penguins
- 4/26 - Avengers: Endgame
- 5/24 - Aladdin
- 6/21 - Toy story 4
- 7/2 - Spider-Man: Far from Home
- 7/19 - The Lion King
- 10/18 - Maleficent
- 11/22 - Frozen II
- 12/20 - The Rise of Skywalker
With the exception of Penguins (which is a nature doc and not a typical release) and Spider-Man (co-produced with Sony), there's at least a 3 week gap between all these releases. I don't know if that was specifically written into any contracts but if it isn't it's still probably a natural consequence of spacing movies out to maximize their box office runs.
That's not a disingenuous take at all. You were the one who said this:
So by your own words, any one with a net worth can fuck off from making demands just because he/she is a multimillionaire dealing with studios that rake in billions. All the while being completely hypocritical and ignorant to the fact that you're essentially caping for the billionaire studios by minimizing what Nolan should ask for. This is why I used the analogy of being completely fine with music streaming companies/record labels screwing over musicians.
To make matters even more baffling, you decide to shift the goalpost into talking about if Nolan decided to leverage then it would be acceptable in your eyes. So if there's a disingenuous take, it's coming from you with how naive you about the negotiation process for directors. No director has ever asked for this as far as what we know of public information re: studio contracts with directors, and here you are, crossing a bullshit line over what's acceptable and what's not acceptable for Nolan.
Why should I be happy about this? If a director wants complete creative control they should finance their movies themselves. It's pretty arrogant to spend a studio's money but then to expect the studio to shut up and go away. If Nolan believes in his vision so much why not put his own money on the line?
And generally speaking a little blowback and limitations can improve a movie because the director is forced to think about it, take other opinions into account, come up with a more creative solution etc., at the end of the day movies are a collaborative effort and giving one person too much control is not necessarily a good thing.
Nolan's movies in particular would benefit a lot from someone being allowed to tell him take a hike during sound mixing. He's not some infallible genius who can do no wrong and he's not even doing himself a favor, if the movie is a disappointment everyone and their aunt will point at the one with full creative control. And an overpriced Oppenheimer biopic might just be that movie, this will make $400 million at best and that's very optimistic.
What he's asking for is not really out of line for others of his stature other than maybe the theatrical window.
All artists want total creative control obviously, very few will actually get granted it and it's for the elite in their respective industry, there's likely not many in movies who have this but his record has earned him that right to at least ask for it. Whether he gets it is obviously dependent on the studio.
I believe top directors get 20% of gross, I believe Spielberg does, or did anyway. Actors also do, Arnold got 25% back in the day, Cruise gets some, I think between 10 - 20%?
$100M budget is far less than big budget films, granted this is a biopic so it is to be expected.
Other than that, I think the normal release window has become 45 days so this is the only thing that's out of line and it's just because he strongly prefers that format.
Confusing movie = / = bad movie. I've seen several of his films...Memento, Prestige, Interstellar, Inception might be my favorite. Personally though I don't always like his directorial choices. He got away with whitewashing twice in his Batman trilogy and largely no one really seemed to care.
I love going to the movies and I miss it. I went for Black Widow, went for Shang Chi, and I'll go again for Venom 2. I missed the bulk of the discussion about Tenet last year but it seemed like Nolan was really pushing to keep a theatrical release of it
Eh, HBO max announced 2022 would be back to theaters with a chance to review with the initial 2021 announcement. So, WB never changed stances on that.
Warner Bros. to Debut Entire 2021 Film Slate, Including ‘Dune’ and ‘Matrix 4,’ Both on HBO Max and In Theaters
‘Matrix 4,’ ‘Dune,’ and the entire 2021 Warner Bros slate will debut on HBO Max and in theaters in a one-year plan due to the pandemic.
variety.com
On the other hand, WB doesn't have on its hands sending more movie lovers into theaters to kill themselves in the name of director vainglory and capitalism on their head. Let's be honest if people had actually gone out to see tenet at the level Nolan wanted it would have been huge super spreaders and it'd be WB not Nolan who would receive the blowback. It's why he chooses to be financed. He can make all these claims from studios without worrying about any of the liability of his decisions.
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He's made some great stuff, but he's been overreaching lately and slacking on his scripts. I hope this had a great script.
If the day-and-date strategy had been a huge success -- creatives happy, box office doing relatively well, streaming subs through the roof -- you can absolutely bet that WB would've continued doing it into 2022 and beyond. The fact that they aren't should pretty obviously indicate that the strategy was not a sterling success. Same thing with Disney Plus Premiere Access, which did seem more successful with Black Widow and Jungle Cruise than HBO Max has been for WB films. But obviously with Shang-Chi's box office and Disney committing to theatrical windows for the rest of the year, PA clearly wasn't successful enough.Eh, HBO max announced 2022 would be back to theaters with a chance to review with the initial 2021 announcement. So, WB never changed stances on that.
Warner Bros. to Debut Entire 2021 Film Slate, Including ‘Dune’ and ‘Matrix 4,’ Both on HBO Max and In Theaters
‘Matrix 4,’ ‘Dune,’ and the entire 2021 Warner Bros slate will debut on HBO Max and in theaters in a one-year plan due to the pandemic.
On the other hand, WB doesn't have on its hands sending more movie lovers into theaters to kill themselves in the name of director vainglory and capitalism on their head.
Anyway, my point was just that "Nolan's gambit failed!" is not really what happened. WB's strategy has been kind of a flop and it cost them one of their biggest filmmakers. Also, WB *did* release Tenet in theaters, so if you're really that outraged about "sending movie lovers into theaters to kill themselves," then I think the studio that literally distributed the movie actually kinda does that have on their head? It's not like Nolan carried the film to the projectionists himself.
His gambit failed cause no one really watched it domestically in its theater run. Tenet opened lower than most of HBO Max's feature films this year and has a lower domestic total than suicide squad.
Commenting that I don't think Nolan making demands for himself that only serve to pad his already incredible wealth is a headline-generating win doesn't mean I'm therefore rah-rah greedy corporations. But that point clearly flew past y'all, so I clarified.
Should people demand equitable compensation for their time and labor? Yes. Without question.
But just so we're absolutely clear, anyone that is even a fraction as fabulously wealthy as Nolan, and clearly wields power enough to get even wealthier entities to capitulate… if that person doesn't leverage that power to, at the bare minimum, distribute the spoils of the collective effort to everyone that made it happen in the first place — bc Nolan ain't out there making movies solo— then yes, that person, whatever their occupation or position, is trash.
So, I ain't moving goalposts. We just seem to be watching very different games.
LA and NY were closed during it's run. Those are the two biggest theater markets by a wide margin. The domestic market was severely limited at the time.
Unless you know something about what the production crew on Nolan movies make that we don't, you're kind of moving goalposts
Since when does business have anything to do with quality? A lot of people see his movies. Heck, even you're watching them, and you don't even think they're good!
I'll see every Nolan movie as soon as possible even though I don't really like most of them because they are, at the very worst, unique and interesting. Nolan is worth every center of this contract. We need more directors who have their own style and aren't afraid to take risks and criticism. He's an entertainer, and he's damn good at that.
Nolan: i want this...use my own money? are you out of your mind! what next focus the story on woman
A bit unrelated but I'll say this, while the articles that came out saying Nolan forced WB to release Tenet last september are most likely valid, there are also rumors suggesting that might not have been the case at all:
It's always best to take things with a grain of salt.
Gotta love how the hate for Nolan has mutated to the point where he's an asshole for financing a movie.
Do you think Tenet opening lower than most HBO Max films this years has absolutely anything to do with the fact that it had already been available in theaters, VOD, and/or bluray for several months before it came to Max (which iirc was May)? Like, I think it would be pretty obvious that brand new films coming out for the first time will attract more attention than something that had already been about for 5-8 months!
What? I mean Tenets domestic lifetime gross is $50 million (from 2020 to now) while The Suicide Squad is $55 million
I don't even understand what your point is. You didn't clarify your stance at all. You literally shifted the goalpost after your attempt to call me out as being disingenuous for saying you're caping for billionaires. You didn't clarify why that's not hypocritical at all. You jumped right away into your expectation of quid pro quo for Nolan to help out his crew.
To go a step further, you clearly recognize that people can demand compensation for their time and labour, but somehow you still maintain that because this person is Chris Nolan, that it's wrong for him to do so unless there's strings attached such that it benefits his production crew.
So no, you're not making any sort of logical sense whatsoever.
You are 100% moving the goalposts. We went from talking about how you're being hypocritical in saying that you don't cape for multimillionaires, while making an argument that benefits billionaires/studios. And instead of addressing that hypocrisy, you double down and move the goalposts into making a virtue-signalling argument about how a director should only leverage his/her power if it meant that his co-workers can benefit, without actually having any understanding of how these negotiations between studios and directors work. You continue to be naïve and disingenuous despite projecting said disingenuity onto others.
I can 100% guarantee that you're not going to keep this same energy if a director you like ends up in the same situation as Chris Nolan.
Oh I'm confused, when you said Max, I thought you were talking about streaming numbers.
Anyway, as PanSexual_Peacock noted, the biggest markets in the country (NY, LA, SF) were closed when Tenet released last year. Those markets, and many more theaters in general, are open right now, which imo makes something like Suicide Squad's take much worse even if it literally has a higher box office number. If you look at the overseas gross (where there were more theaters open this time last year), Tenet's is significantly higher than Suicide Squad's, Black Widow's, Jungle Cruise's. Actually I'm not sure if there is a film this year with a better overseas gross than Tenet other than F9?
It's not! He wants full control without any risk except to his ego should the movie bomb. I don't like that and think it's arrogant to demand it and I'm pretty sure if his money was on the line he wouldn't scream as loud about the theatrical experience and a 100 day window, it's easy to do that when you don't have to worry about recouping the money you spend on the movie.
I know. What a terrible person using poor studio's hard-earned money for his own personal gain not paying any attention to the studio's feelings.
his deal calls for a percentage of the box office gross lmao how is he not taking any risk "should the
Movie bomb"? Why do you even care? It's Universals' money and they don't. The ridiculously and irrational vitriol towards Nolan is hilarious. It's like when some of you sink your claws into someone or something you lose all sense of reason, all in the name of "dragging" someone on a video game message board. Pathetic.
Whew, it's a good thing we have folks in here standing up and defending the movie studios and financiers of Hollywood. Certainly wouldn't want to minimize their perspective.
Tenet did better globally that every Hollywood 2021 release so far except Godzilla vs Kong, Black Widow, and F9.
EDIT: Looks like it's just Godzilla vs Kong. Though excluding China, Tenet is #2 in OS gross.
And may not be another until Bond. I don't think Shang Chi makes it, though it doesn't have a China release and Tenet obviously did. But even in like for like markets, Tenet still might end up above. Which is kinda crazy when you think about it.
Yes and no. If you're a fan of Nolan you have to watch Tenet but not because its an amazing movie, its an incomprehensible mess thats too far up its own ass, but its not without its cool moments and a lot of artistic merit. I cant remember the last movie that made me feel a headache as I was watching because of me trying to piece the movie in my head as I watched. In a weird way its a must watch.
A lot of people are really loud in their hate of his movies.
He is one of the few directors that I am interested in whatever he does.
Some people are also really selfish and stupid and loud in their desire to get movies at home day one because it suits them. Fuck everyone else as long as I get what I want.
But you're talking about a director who is notoriously known for never going over-budget on his projects and always ending his shoots ahead of schedule.
I'd say he takes his budgets/film finances very seriously, he has even spoken about this, it's why he asked for a smaller budget for Dunkirk in comparison to his last few films, since that was a bigger risk for the studio.
Yeah Tenet in a "normal" year would have been easily a $600m+ grosser even with its mixed reception. Which is great for a new IP without major box office stars. That's why Nolan gets these deals.
A lot of people suddenly become apologists for billion dollar faceless corporations when they want to A) shit on a director they don't like or B) want to stan for Disney (see the recent Scarlett Johansson threads)
I really wonder what franchise Nolan would be willing to take over at this point, that wouldn't feel like a step down for him. Doing his own Bond would have made sense (since he's clearly wanted to make one forever) - but now that timing doesn't really work.
I know he's a fan of F&F but I highly doubt he'd actually direct one. Jurassic Park doesn't seem like an IP he'd be interested in as well. What other IP's do Universal have?
Nolan isn't doing those kinds of franchise IP. Universal signed him because he effectively IS the IP.
Nolan is his own franchise. He will probably throw them something more commercially appealing after Oppenheimer, though, yeah.
But $100m is peanuts for a budget these days. You know he's going to get a great cast as well so it's hard to imagine this thing losing money even if it doesn't over perform like Dunkirk.