Re: Tenet - Box Office Discussion/Speculation
Posted: December 21st, 2019, 10:29 am
I'm pretty sure you have no idea what Warner Bros. execs truly think of Nolan, his work, the box office performance of his films, etc. Neither do I, mind you, but I'm really not sure what your argument is and what you base it upon other than... your thoughts.blackColumn wrote: ↑December 21st, 2019, 3:34 amYou are right Nicolas. The box office performance was quite good for a WW2 movie.
But the studios don't care about that. They care about -
1) Okay this an original movie let's see how well it does.
2) Okay we are giving you an established IP (like Bond, Batman, Matrix), let's see how well it does.
Considering this we can safely assume that Inception's box office (since that an original movie) was where Nolan's career peaked.
Each original movie since then has performed less and less.
And this argument that Nolan is losing his charm - what? And studio execs are disappointed by the BO performance of his latest films? So why the hell would they put their money up on a $250 million, completely original project that they won't even communicate what it's about? The fact that Dunkirk made $500~ million is not a disappointment, because you have to look at the context. Yes, Interstellar didn't have Inception numbers, but there are so many reasons for that. And Interstellar became a cultural phenomenon nevertheless. Maybe - this might be naive, but - Warner Bros. and the execs over there know exactly that Nolan has become one of the biggest names in modern cinema, on par with other living directors such as Spielberg, Cameron, Scorsese, Tarantino, etc., and maybe, just maybe this is more important to them than demanding from Nolan to deliver billions of dollars to them with each film.
Back when they trusted him with Batman, they took a risk, but it paid off and they cannot let go of this "treasure" they have in their hands. And you don't even have to like Nolan's films to see that he himself has become a cultural phenomenon and something no studio can let go of. They are completely aware of the hype surrounding his character and his past and future films, they can see that other franchises have been trying to get him ever since he finished his Batman-trilogy (like, the Bond-people had at least a dozen of meetings with Nolan) - there's no charm that is being lost here. And, once again, they trusted him with the largest rumored budget for an original project in recent years. And they have the balls not to communicate anything about it.
So, all in all, I just don't believe that the numbers of Interstellar and Dunkirk are proof that he is losing his charm. Obviously $600~ million for Interstellar is less then $800~ million for Inception, but... it's still profit. And it's profit that comes from completely original, almost experimental blockbuster movies. Not Marvel shit, not Star Wars, not Disney, not fucking Batman, it's one guy making profitable movies for a studio. It's a guy that made a 80-minute long film about a British event in WW2 with no famous faces and a tiny amount of dialogue profitable!!
