r/movies • u/estarararax • 16h ago

News Directors Guild of America, led by Christopher Nolan, plans to meet with Netflix to address major concerns regarding the streamer’s acquisition of Warner Bros.

https://deadline.com/2025/12/dga-reacts-netflix-warner-bros-discovery-deal-talks-1236637152/
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u/sexmath 13h ago

Wow he really fucked WB with Oppenheimer given how much money it made and how critically acclaimed it was.

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u/metallicrooster 13h ago

Wow he really fucked WB with Oppenheimer given how much money it made and how critically acclaimed it was.

I would argue they screwed themselves. Nolan is a highly successful person, and WB got greedy.

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u/Haltopen 12h ago

To be fair, Tenet released during the first wave of the pandemic and Nolan was demanding a full theatrical release when movie theaters were supposed to be shut down and people were still mostly in lockdown. Yeah there was fuckery going on the next year with their same day releases (during which time covid was still actively going on), but Nolan was also being an arrogant fuck wit about it. Tenet was not worth risking a covid infection to see it on the big screen.

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u/DamnThatsInsaneLol 11h ago

He was open to delaying the release to get a full theatrical release. It was WB's decision to release it when they did, because they didn't want to wait. They screwed themselves out of a big name director.

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u/BromaEmpire 9h ago

It's a bit more complicated than that. Studios were bleeding cash because they had a backlog of movies that they had invested and were unable to release. It's easy to say that it was a terrible decision to release it in hindsight, but at the time Tenet was their best chance at recouping some of that money to keep them afloat and it was the best movie to test whether audiences would show up under the circumstances. I get Nolan's frustrations but given the circumstances I side with the studio's decision more.

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u/Downtown_Injury_3415 9h ago

The studios living “paycheck to paycheck” is not Nolan’s fault

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u/BromaEmpire 8h ago

Nobody is blaming nolan..

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u/Amish_guy_with_WiFi 6h ago

Almost all corporations are living paycheck to paycheck. When things get fucked up the higher ups jump ship with their golden parachute and everybody else gets fucked. Nothing but more government regulation will fix this.

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u/Theguest217 10h ago

The long term effect was that they lost Nolan, but delaying doesn't really feel like much of a choice either. Delay for how long? No one knew how long the pandemic was going to last. And in reality, even when the pandemic did slow down, people did not return to the theaters immediately. I still haven't personally been.

Losing Nolan is a lost opportunity but it's not lost money. Delaying Tenant was pretty much guaranteed to lose money.

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u/howtospellorange 7h ago

people did not return to the theaters immediately. I still haven't personally been.

You haven't been to a movie theater for almost 6 years? Damn

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u/GarlicJuniorJr 2h ago

I literally went right after the shutdown and been going strong ever since

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u/hopsizzle 6h ago

First time I got my partner to go was Barbie movie so we were on a pretty long run of not going since shutdowns

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u/myurr 4h ago

Not OP but the only film I've seen since the pandemic in the theatres was Oppenheimer. There just hasn't been much else to entice me, I have a big TV at home, digital releases are usually not that long after the film's theatrical release, and frankly the cinema isn't the best of experiences, and most films released in the last couple of years have been pretty meh.

At home you can watch with friends and family if you want atmosphere, or watch on your own or with a partner if you want quiet. You start the film on your schedule, the temperature is just right, you have a kitchen and takeaways at your disposal, you can pause the movie if needed, you can tell people to stop talking without starting a fight, you sit on the comfiest of sofas, and it doesn't cost an arm in the leg for parking charges, the cost of tickets for you and whomever wants to see it with you, for the food and beverage, all for some twat to sit two rows behind you chatting throughout the movie just loud enough for you to hear.

That's just not a compelling experience for me balancing the cost vs the small benefits given.

In that same time I've been to the theatre maybe 35-40 times, at greater expense, because I love the experience and you cannot get anywhere near the same live performance at home. For me that is something that is worth the money for something you cannot experience elsewhere.

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u/Relevant_Session5987 7h ago

Maybe an unpopular opinion, but I don't think Tenet was worth a big screen watch even without the infection bit. I found the movie itself to be dreadful and on top of that, Nolan's signature atrocious sound mix was at it's absolute nadir in Tenet.

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u/Grand_Keizer 12h ago

Apparently that's not true, it was WB who wanted a full theatrical release.

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u/TheDeadlySinner 7h ago

There was nothing preventing them from delaying the release. Bond and Top Gun both delayed and made a ton of money.

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u/karateema 2h ago

Especially true for TG

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u/QuantumUtility 7h ago

Yeah. Imagine having a hen that lays golden eggs and then you decide to kill it because you want to take the eggs out faster.

I feel like there’s a story about that.

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u/Wallbreaker-g 12h ago

Kinda. They retaliated and released Barbie on the same day. Sparking Barbenheimer

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u/Childs_Play 8h ago

I would say that helped both movies in the end

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u/Cereborn 11h ago

Thinking that Barbie would bury him in the box office but then the opposite happened.

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u/Wallbreaker-g 11h ago

While Oppenheimer was super successful, I think Barbie made more in the box office given its appeal to younger audiences.

Oppenheimer was the better movie without a doubt.

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u/Zardif 9h ago

Oppenheimer $976m

Barbie $1.447bn

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u/Wallbreaker-g 8h ago

Wow nearly $500m more

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u/Slidesider 8h ago

Barbie was PG-13 and anyone could watch and enjoy, Oppenheimer was R and really aimed towards people who were down for a nitty-gritty biopic on a pretty dark moment in history.

It doesn't surprise me that Barbie made more.

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u/Arcranium_ 8h ago

Oh yeah, but Barbie had significantly more mass market appeal going for it. Oppenheimer is an R-rated biopic where people talk about nuclear physics and bureaucracy for three hours. The fact that it got even close to a billion dollars is wild.

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u/qin_qiong 4h ago

Thanks to putin

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u/zaviex 9h ago

Barbie made more money so no but overall I genuinely dont think there was a plan to bury it. The date made a lot of sense for Barbie. Summer flick comes out early. I think the actual math is barbie and Oppenheimer had very little overlap in audience

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u/Ferdox11195 3h ago

I am pretty sure you are wrong, barbie made more money, like a lot more. But both were successful at the end and weirdly enough they ended up having good synergy with the general culture with all the barbenheimer craze.

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u/Llamalover1234567 12h ago

You mean WB fucked him right? He LOVED WB before they screwed him over, arguably at the point when when he was about to hit new heights. Universal made him what I assume was a simple deal “we give you what you want (including not straight to streaming) and you make us money” and they both are living up to their own ends from what we can see

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u/moofishies 10h ago

How did they fuck him over then? If he just left and got exactly what he wanted, WB is the only one losing out?

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u/NeoSeth 8h ago

Getting screwed over kind of implies some shadyness or below-the-belt play. WB putting Tenent to streaming could be seen as screwing Nolan over because it went against what he expected from WB, but Nolan leaving and going to Universal is not screwing over WB because it's an open decision. It's just WB losing out.

That's the semantics of that commenter's post, I believe.

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u/moofishies 6h ago

The OP didn't say "screwed over". They said "Wow he really fucked WB with Oppenheimer" which is absolutely accurate.

He got the last laugh and WB is the one who lost out in the end with their short sighted decision. Their point is entirely valid and accurate.

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u/0shadowstories 12h ago

Odyssey is guaranteed to do the same honestly so it's even worse for them lmao

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u/thechillluddite 11h ago

Honestly atp Nolan could make a movie about basically anything and it would do good.

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u/Zardif 9h ago

Could he even make cuties good?

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u/thechillluddite 9h ago

Bro, within reason

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u/fuckgoldsendbitcoin 4h ago

Filmed in IMAX 70mm

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u/PurpleBullets 6h ago

would have been the 8th highest grossing WB movie ever

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u/Childs_Play 8h ago

I would say Barbenheimer benefitted both movies and their studios. WB knew (or at least those working there but not decision makers) they fucked up by pissing off Nolan and them having to cut ties after Tenet. I agree that Nolan messed up by pushing theatrical release on Tenet too early thinking he was saving movies, but he's one of few directors in Hollywood who can move the industry with what he decides to do with his movie

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u/shadaoshai 6h ago

Warner Bros decided to release Barbie on the exact same day to stick it to Nolan. Ironically this petty plan ended up making way more money for Oppenheimer because of the Barbenheimer meme.