Nolan had two films (excluding the shorts) in his pocket before Insomnia. I understand that both Following and Memento were successful critically. Memento was even quite successful financially given its small scale.

Insomnia had a bigger budget than Memento, and though it wasn't a blockbuster level budget, it still had some big names casted - Al Pacino and Robin Williams.

Then there was Batman Begins. Warner Bros had to have a lot of confidence in Nolan in order to entrust him with the reboot of Batman and a budget of 150 mil.

I am curious as to how Nolan managed to land these two projects. It seems like quite a risk to employ him, especially for Batman Begins. Even though his projects prior to Batman Begins were all quite successful critically, how did the studios trust him enough to give him a big scale project?

eescorpius wrote:Nolan had two films (excluding the shorts) in his pocket before Insomnia. I understand that both Following and Memento were successful critically. Memento was even quite successful financially given its small scale.

Insomnia had a bigger budget than Memento, and though it wasn't a blockbuster level budget, it still had some big names casted - Al Pacino and Robin Williams.

Then there was Batman Begins. Warner Bros had to have a lot of confidence in Nolan in order to entrust him with the reboot of Batman and a budget of 150 mil.

I am curious as to how Nolan managed to land these two projects. It seems like quite a risk to employ him, especially for Batman Begins. Even though his projects prior to Batman Begins were all quite successful critically, how did the studios trust him enough to give him a big scale project?

Memento was even quite successful financially given its small scale.

That right there is what gets your name on the tip of executive's tongues. It's the standard cycle in business, especially in Hollywood. Make a noticeable profit on your smaller films, get meetings with the big execs. This one has more to do with your skill on pitches, which from what I learned from the Begins documentaries and TDK trilogy quotes from Warner's, Nolan had the best pitch out of all the filmmakers who approached the studio with how to do the next Batman. Those other names including Joss Whedon, Aronofsky, Schumacher (again), Yakin, Peterson, etc.

Memento wasn't just a little indie darling that was floating around the niche market either as its modest box office success might make you think, its title and story was circulated throughout multiple festivals that year and throughout Hollywood. Nolan was the hot name during the year of 2001 and he essentially got to choose what project he wanted to pursue, which happened to be the remake of Insomnia. Warner's agrees to foot the bill and this film turns a profit as well. And the rest is history.

And yes, it was risk giving a $150 million tentpole to a filmmaker with 3 features under his belt, most of them indies but Warner's deserves credit for putting their faith in him and obviously that proved to be the right gamble. It's essentially every studio's dream when they have meetings with up and coming filmmakers.

All it takes is just one hit to make your name a hot commodity.

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