It's not been an easy year for filmmaker Christopher Nolan; his desire to preserve the big screen experience saw Tenet flop back in September, while he recently described HBO Max as the "worst streamer" (despite his long-running working relationship with Warner Bros.).
Nolan has also come under fire for seemingly caring more about having people watch movies in theaters than their safety during a pandemic. In an interview with The Washington Post, though, the director explained that he wasn't as hands on with Tenet's theatrical release as some have claimed.
"The studio made the decision to release the film in the summer in parts of the world where it was safe to open the film because of the response to the pandemic in those individual countries," Nolan says. "And I think they made a good decision. A lot of people got to see the film. A lot of people went back to work and all the rest and were able to safely do that."
"This country is a different story. Hollywood filmmaking is a global business. It’s not an American-only business. And I think it’s very important for people to look beyond where they are sitting in the world and look at what’s going on in the rest of the world as well, and be mindful of that."
In the same interview, Nolan talked more about Warner Bros. sending its entire 2021 slate to HBO Max, and elaborated on his recent attack against the WarnerMedia-owned streaming service.
"The studio needed to collaborate with the filmmakers on what was going to happen. They didn’t speak to the filmmakers, they didn’t speak to the theater chains," he explains. "They didn’t speak to the production partners on the films. That was the reason I was speaking up."
"As far as the specific strategy of what you would be doing over the entirety of next year, I don’t know why anyone would be making predictions through to December of 2021 on what they should or shouldn’t be doing with the business. That seems a long way out in a fast changing situation."
In fairness, Nolan is making a lot of sense here. However, there's no denying that he's become something of a controversial figure in 2020 thanks to everything that happened with Tenet.
Moving forward, it remains to be seen what the theater going experience will look like, but with doubts about how widespread the vaccine will be next year, 2021 might not be as normal as hoped.