Samuel Brace on Christopher Nolan’s next project…
It’s certainly true that very few directors elicit such strong levels of anticipation as Christopher Nolan. A new Nolan movie is an event, no matter the genre, no matter the subject matter; it doesn’t need to be a sequel, remake, or adaptation of a well-known brand – people are just excited to see a new Christopher Nolan movie – and who can blame them? Thanks to a truly remarkable track record of directing films of the most outstanding quality and a reputation for doing things just a little bit differently, Nolan demands our attention and indeed our speculation.
So at the start of 2019, his legions of fans around the world might just be asking themselves, where is Nolan? What’s his next film going to be and when are we going to hear about it? These are all good questions and questions I myself, being an unashamed Nolan fan (what genuine movie lover couldn’t be?), would love some answers to. Now is a good time to make clear that I have no insider knowledge, no secret insight into Nolan’s mind, but corners of the internet like this lend themselves pretty well to a little speculation.
With that being said, let’s tackle the second of the two questions posed in this article’s title and try to figure out when we might hear about what Nolan might be directing next. We can come at this pretty logically by looking at what the great man (recently awarded a CBE by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II) has done in the past and when he has done it. Nolan’s last movie was Dunkirk, which came out in the summer of 2017. Nolan, until recently has mostly released a film every couple of years. The most time he has taken between movies has been three years, this has happened on two occasions, first between Insomnia (2002) and Batman Begins (2005) and most recently between Interstellar (2014) and Dunkirk (2017).
With this information at hand, we can safely assume that Nolan’s next film should be arriving very soon, at least if he keeps to his past schedule. Dunkirk was two years ago now which might suggest 2019 as a possible date for a new release. However, as we have heard nothing so far from Nolan about what’s next, I think it’s fair to rule out this present year as the date of arrival. If Nolan is going to keep to three years as being the most time taken between releases, this leaves us with 2020 as the best bet for when we might get to watch hopefully another Nolan classic. If 2020 is going to be the year, the good news then is that we should be hearing something about what he is working on very soon indeed. Major details, in typical Nolan fashion, will likely remain scarce for a long time, but we should at least learn about the genre or general topic in this calendar year.
Okay, so we’ve got 2020 as our most likely option for a release date and as a result 2019 as the year when we will hear about it. July seems to be his preferred month to launch a new movie, with November also being used on multiple occasions. If we go for July, however, which seems an eminently likely option, we can make ourselves feel a little better and then assume that first news of Nolan’s new project will make its way to us at least a year before it comes out and therefore very soon indeed. Rejoice!
Now we’ve got the possible (probable?) dates figured out, what about the substance of the film itself? What could it be about? Well, Nolan’s oeuvre has truly spanned many genres, often producing some of the very best work each category and subject matter has been capable of. We’ve seen psychological thrillers (Memento), period pieces (The Prestige), superhero films (The Dark Knight Trilogy), science fiction (Inception), space-set science fiction (Interstellar), and war (Dunkirk). Many fans of his would love to see Nolan continue directing some of the best efforts in each genre of film and therefore tackle a wholly new genre for his next project. Some would love to see the master return to the realm of science-fiction, the genre that perhaps suits his unique talents like no other. Well, what could the options be? Continue on to the next page for a few ideas…
