Director Christopher Nolan has received a seven-figure check from Warner Bros. as a sign of good faith.
The acclaimed director began his partnership with Warner Bros. in 2002 with his film Insomnia. Since then, Nolan worked with WB for years, collaborating with them on The Dark Knight trilogy and his original films, such as Inception, Interstellar, and most recently, Tenet.
However, a rift between the director and studio arose in 2020 when, during the height of the pandemic, Warner Bros. announced that they would be releasing their 2021 films in theaters and on HBO Max on the same day without telling the creators. Nolan publicly denounced the day-and-date decision, calling HBO Max “the worst streaming service.” This led to Nolan leaving Warner Bros. and working with rival Universal Pictures to distribute his new film, Oppenheimer.
With his new film on the horizon, Warner Bros. is hoping to win Nolan back. He received a seven-figure royalty check from WB, a bonus made in good faith after Tenet underperformed at the box office during its September 2020 release. A sign that the relationship is beginning to mend appeared when Nolan did postproduction work on Oppenheimer on the Warners lot.
Who is in the Oppenheimer cast?
Oppenheimer has a star-studded cast, including Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr., Florence Pugh, Rami Malek, Benny Safdie, Michael Angarano, Josh Hartnett, Kenneth Branagh, Dane DeHaan, Alden Ehrenreich, Matthew Modine, Jack Quaid, David Dastmalachina, Jason Clarke, Josh Peck, Devon Bostick, Gary Oldman, and Casey Affleck.
The movie releases on July 21, 2023, by Universal Pictures.