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Don’t expect Christopher Nolan to cozy up with Netflix for an original feature film any time soon. While the streaming service has garnered serious attention for producing original movies like Beasts of No Nation, Okja, and War Machine, the auteur behind the Dark Knight trilogy and acclaimed films like Interstellar and Inception believes that Netflix is directly opposed to the theatrical experience he cherishes.
When asked if he’d ever work with Netflix, Nolan flat out told IndieWire “no.” He explained: “Well, why would you? If you make a theatrical film, it’s to be played in theaters.” Nolan’s films have been larger than life, from the stunning vistas of Interstellar to the IMAX scenes in The Dark Knight to the mind-bending perception tricks in Inception.
“Netflix has a bizarre aversion to supporting theatrical films,” said Nolan. “They have this mindless policy of everything having to be simultaneously streamed and released, which is obviously an untenable model for theatrical presentation. So they’re not even getting in the game, and I think they’re missing a huge opportunity.”
His most recent feature film, Dunkirk, has numerous war scenes that were created with the full theatrical experience in mind. That experience, according to Nolan, does not compare at all to the at-home streaming option provided by Netflix. Nolan likened a film being released on Netflix to a film being released straight to home video in the ’90s–which was at the time, according to Nolan, a filmmaker’s “worst nightmare.”
Even the fact that Netflix is working with acclaimed filmmakers and debuting films at festivals like Cannes doesn’t impress Nolan. “I think the investment that Netflix is putting into interesting filmmakers and interesting projects would be more admirable if it weren’t being used as some kind of bizarre leverage against shutting down theaters,” he said. “It’s so pointless. I don’t really get it.”
Nolan doesn’t have the same ire for Amazon, though, which won two Academy Awards with Manchester By the Sea earlier this year. “You can see that Amazon is very clearly happy to not make that same mistake,” he said. “The theaters have a 90-day window. It’s a perfectly usable model. It’s terrific.”
Basically, Nolan’s whole Netflix gripe can be summed up with one statement: “If Netflix has made a great film, they should put it in theaters. Why not? Stream it 90 days later.”
That’s a clear point, to be sure, but fellow filmmaker Ava DuVernay (who partnered with Netflix for the documentary 13th) had an equally clear counterpoint in support of Netflix releasing films on their service and in theaters simultaneously:
