Director Christopher Nolan, who lashed out at Warner Bros. in response to their decision to send films straight to HBO Max or premiere them the same day they debut in theaters, is apparently considering other streaming options. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Netflix’s Head of Original Films, Scott Stuber indicated that the streamer has been in conversation with Nolan about collaborations and noted that the sticking point has been global distribution.
“I think there are aspects of global distribution in the cinema that are still appealing,” Stuber said. “Chris Nolan and I have spoken quite a bit…and that’s still something he wants deeply. If we can’t provide that, it will still be an issue for him. I think we have a model that works and we’ve done well with the theaters that have played us. As these things change, we’re all having these conversations to see where it all lands and what the landscape on the other side of all of this is.” Stuber’s comments came as part of a discussion on how Netflix has become a major player at the Oscars, winning seven awards on Sunday in its latest impressive haul.
When we previously covered the Warner Bros. plan for its entire 2021 slate to debut in theaters and on HBO Max on the same day, we included Nolan’s angry response to those plans. Back in December, Nolan shared with 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,” referring to HBO Max.
Nolan’s latest film, Tenet, was one of the biggest planned 2020 blockbusters to be postponed during the pandemic, and the director was insistent on giving it a theatrical release. The concept of it being the film that brought people back to theaters didn’t pan out, and the film ended up bringing in $58 million domestically and $364 million internationally, considerably less than his previous films, like Dunkirk, Interstellar, and Inception. On Sunday, Tenet was awarded the Oscar for Best Visual Effects, the third Nolan film to win that prize.
But Nolan has to make a tough decision, Netflix has been open to giving select originals exclusive theatrical runs ahead of streaming in the U.
S., such as Noah Baumbach’s “Marriage Story” and Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman”, but it doesn’t work in France, they have a 36-month theatrical window, meaning films need to wait three years between releasing in theaters and going on Netflix.
France’s window is the reason Netflix famously pulled out of Cannes, as competition titles are required to screen in French theaters. As for the U.S., top theater chains like AMC don’t play Netflix films at the moment because they don’t follow specific windows.