What’s next project for Christopher Nolan? After the success of “Oppenheimer,” he can probably make any film he wants.
Don’t say Bond. That’s just a rumor, for now, but it’s not out of the question either. There are creative limits when it comes to Bond, with producer Barbara Broccoli calling the shots, and Nolan has mentioned these limits in past interviews.
How about a horror film? Variety reports that Nolan has no exact plans yet for his next film, but he’s curiously intrigued by the idea of making a “really exceptional” horror film.
Nolan spoke about the horror genre at BFI last night. He calls the genre “visceral,” with “a lot of bleakness, a lot of abstraction,” and that it allows filmmakers to do things onscreen that Hollywood is typically “resistant to.” However, Nolan says it would take a great idea for him to delve into horror:
Oppenheimer has elements of horror in it definitely, as I think is appropriate to the subject matter. I think horror films are very interesting because they depend on very cinematic devices, it really is about a visceral response to things and so, at some point, I’d love to make a horror film. But I think a really good horror film requires a really exceptional idea. And those are few and far between. So I haven’t found a story that lends itself to that. But I think it’s a very interesting genre from a cinematic point of view. It’s also one of the few genres where the studios make a lot of these films, and they are films that have a lot of bleakness, a lot of abstraction. They have a lot of the qualities that Hollywood is generally very resistant to putting in films, but that’s a genre where it’s allowable.
In his career, Nolan has dabbled in sci-fi, noir, biopic, comic book, and war films. Horror would surely be an intriguing prospect for him. I’m sure he has ideas percolating in his head about what’s next for him, but he’s making sure not to let it slip out.
It’s not too surprising for Nolan to want to tackle horror, it’s turned into a very profitable genre at the box-office, and there are filmmakers out there who are challenging narrative limits and taking risks with their films, I’m thinking of Ari Aster, Robert Eggers, Jordan Peele, David Robert Mitchell, Zach Cregger, Leigh Whannell, Ti West, Fede Álvarez and Brandon Cronenberg.
Criterion's December lineup has some great additions to the library, but the title that jumped out at me is Werner Herzog's "Grizzly Man," which officially joins the Collection on December 8.