When it comes to making big tentpoles movies, the purse strings and final say will mostly reside with the producers, with the director simply being responsible for establishing a vision for the film. There are certain directors though to whom studios practically give a blank cheque to just say and do what they want because the studios know that whatever these filmmakers do, it will turn out amazing.
One of those directors is Christopher Nolan who, thanks to his overwhelming box office and critical success from films like The Dark Knight Trilogy, Inception, Interstellar, The Prestige and recently Dunkirk, gets to tell his own stories, his own way. And that includes keeping marketing far away from his big projects so as to ensure that as little details as possible are revealed about the creative visions he is working on.
Take his new project Tenet for instance, which is set to release on July 17th, 2020, three years after the director released Dunkirk. Apart from the name and the fact that it stars John David Washington, Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth Debicki, Kenneth Branagh, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Clémence Poésy, and Nolan’s good-luck charm, Michael Caine, we know absolutely nothing about it. No basic plot, setting, nothing. Though you can rest assured that given Nolan’s mind, it will probably be ambitious, and incredibly smart.
Thanks to a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly though, we finally have a first glimpse of what to expect from the movie as they revealed the first images from the film. This comes along with a short tidbit of information from Nolan himself about the making of the film while keeping suitably coy in not revealing any further details:
We’re jumping off from the point of view of an espionage film, but we’re going to a number of different places. We’re crossing a few different genres in a hopefully exciting and fresh way. [Producer] Emma [Thomas] and I have put together a lot of large-scale productions, but this is certainly the biggest in terms of international reach. We shot in seven countries, all over the place, with a massive cast and huge set pieces. There’s no question, it’s the most ambitious film we’ve made.
So, what does all this tell us about the movie? Well, pretty much nothing, though at least we know it will be some sort of espionage film. Maybe. Kind of. That it was filmed in seven different countries perhaps gives us an indication to the massive scope of the movie but otherwise, these pictures aren’t terribly revealing, though Pattison’s character does look an awful lot like Nolan himself. Take that whichever way you want.
We may get some more info this coming weekend as Nolan reportedly filmed a short prologue to Tenet which will air in front of select IMAX screenings of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, but chances are it will probably just leave us with more questions. Despite this though, I am still incredibly hyped for this movie as I’ve simply loved everything Nolan has done before. It’s strange to feel so excited about something I know so little about, but perhaps that is the strength of Nolan’s unconventional filmmaking style and proof that he is still one of the biggest filmmakers in the world right now.
Last Updated: December 19, 2019
