Christopher Nolan is riding high off the success of his sci-fi adventure film Interstellar , which earned about $50 million in its first weekend. With big-blockbuster hits like Batman Begins and The Dark Knight and Inception already on his resume, the director, writer, and producer has proven his ability to connect with audiences.
Now the big question is what will he do next?
According to USA Today , Nolan is up for almost anything.
I would try anything I think except comedy or romantic comedy. Those are very tough genres to work in. They rely on an unanimity of audience response. You screen a comedy for people, and if they don’t laugh, you’ve got to figure out a way to make them laugh. There’s no hiding behind the art of the film.”
Still, Nolan finds moments in his own films that he finds funny, including some scenes with Heath Ledger’s Joker character.
There are a few other items that Christopher Nolan won’t touch according to an interview with the Daily Beast .
Nolan always wanted to make a space epic, but unlike J.J. Abrams, he says there are some established franchises that he would want to stay away from. When asked if he would have been interested in directing a Star Wars film, Nolan said “I’d be afraid to touch it.”
As far as whether or not I would have ever done it, the truth is I think I’d be afraid to touch it! He’s boldly going where he went before in Star Trek , and it takes colossal balls. I’m a lot more comfortable trying to do my own thing than carrying the weight and expectation of the entire world—particularly 40-somethings like me who live and die with each new bit of information about Star Wars .”
Nevertheless, he’s excited to see what Abrams does with the franchise. Strangely enough, Nolan apparently didn’t feel any of that pressure when taking on a trilogy of Batman films. Although, after the last ’90s era film, Batman & Robin, which IMDB gives a 3.6 out of 10, the bar was set incredibly low.
So Nolan has narrowed down the field. He won’t do Star Wars or Comedies, but otherwise he is wide open to the future. But that’s only if the future has enough survivors to see his movies.
As Nolan explained to the Daily Beast , he has serious reservations about the future of the planet.
I’m very worried about our future in a lot of ways. I think nuclear weapons are still an enormous threat and tend not to get talked about very much. There are obviously massive environmentalism issues that need to be addressed.”
His fears about the future may be part of his inspiration for Interstellar ; however, he does claim to be an optimist in the end.
I worry about things, but at the same time, I have a lot of faith in people coming together to solve problems.”
According to Christopher Nolan, that human unity is heavily featured in Interstellar , perhaps one more reason to go see it.
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