How Christopher Nolan’s Beef With Warner Bros Saved the 2023 Box Office
2024 could sure use a Barbenheimer moment right about now.
2020
On December 3rd, 2020, Warner Bros. announced their landmark decision to release all their 2021 films simultaneously in theaters and on their streaming platform HBO Max. It was a day which The Hollywood Reporter declared would “live in infamy”. Within a few days of the announcement from the studio, writer and director Christopher Nolan had released a scathing statement to THR, writing “Some of our industry’s biggest filmmakers and most important movie stars went to bed the night before thinking they were working for the greatest movie studio and woke up to find out they were working for the worst streaming service.”
It was a shocking takedown from Nolan, who has always had a reputation as a very professional and respectful filmmaker/businessman. On top of that, it came after a nearly 20-year relationship between the director and studio, which had produced award-winning, critically acclaimed, and financially successful films such as The Dark Knight trilogy, Inception and Dunkirk.
At the time, both Nolan and Warner were in very difficult places, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Theater restrictions had hampered the release of Nolan’s film Tenet, which had previously been scheduled for a July 17th, 2020 release date in the States. On July 20th, three days after the film was originally supposed to be released, Variety reported that Warner Bros. had removed the film from its schedule entirely, “delivering a big blow on the exhibition industry at a time when movie theaters had hoped to peg their re-opening to the late summer debut of Christopher Nolan’s sci-fi thriller.”
With staggered releases across various countries, beginning in Europe in August and finally bowing in the US in early September, Tenet eventually wound up generating a respectable $365 million at the global box office. However, this amount was far from the billion-dollar-highs of Nolan’s last two Batman films, and was even significantly down from Dunkirk (2017), Nolan’s previous film, a WWII action thriller that had scored $530 million worldwide and won 3 Oscars. On top of that, Tenet’s twisty time-travel narrative also didn’t thrill critics. It resulted in the lowest critical reviews of Nolan’s career, and was his first to not receive a “Certified-Fresh” rating from review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes — which was extra embarrassing when you take into consideration that Warner Bros. owns a not-insignificant stake of RT.
Tenet was supposed to be WB’s big summer tentpole, and the studio had high hopes for their golden boy director, especially after 2020 had kicked off with the tepid response to the female-led DC antihero team-up Birds of Prey in February, before the COVID-19 virus had even been confirmed in North America. In general, Warner have struggled with their DC comic book assets since Nolan’s departure from the superhero realm after directing The Dark Knight Rises (2012), with only James Wan’s Aquaman (2019) being able to generate a billion dollars in the decade-plus since the Christian Bale film series concluded. Christopher Nolan’s original films he directed for WB often outgrossed Warner’s DC superhero movies, as evidenced by Interstellar (2014) grossing nearly 60 million more worldwide than Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel (2013). Snyder’s Superman flick was even written and produced by Nolan, who allowed the studio to use his name for marketing materials (seemingly to little effect).
As the pandemic rolled on into late 2020 and it was clear that there would be no significant change until vaccines entered the equation, Warner Bros.’ then-CEO Ann Sarnoff, along with Jason Kilar, then-CEO of parent company WarnerMedia, weighed their options and eventually decided on what has proven to be one of the most consequential decisions in modern Hollywood history. On the same day that Christopher Nolan sent his furious statement to The Hollywood Reporter, Deadline published a report in which they outlined how Legendary Entertainment (which had previously partnered with Warner Bros. on The Dark Knight trilogy) were preparing for a potential lawsuit, alleging that they had not been told in advance of the announcement that their upcoming film Godzilla vs. Kong would be made available to stream online just as it was released in theaters in March 2021. With film directors and partnering studios airing their grievances in public, Warner Bros. had set themselves up for a roller coaster of public relations management which has hardly slowed down to this day.
2021
The beef between Legendary and Warner Bros. initially seemed to be squashed fairly quickly, with THR reporting on a potential new deal between the studios only a month after the dispute was first made public. Despite the streaming release, Godzilla vs. Kong went on to make $470 million at the global box office, more than Tenet, and more than the previous Warner/Legendary Godzilla film had made, in pre-pandemic 2019. Director Adam Wingard was quickly signed on for another Godzilla film. But as the year continued on and none of WB’s films managed to match the numbers that GvK had pulled in, Legendary Entertainment and director Denis Villeneuve appeared to grow apprehensive about the same theatrical/streaming release strategy for their upcoming adaptation of Frank Herbert’s Dune, which was also co-financed by the two studios. As Warner refused to budge on the HBO Max release, Villeneuve wrote a column for Variety, claiming “Warner Bros.’ decision means Dune won’t have the chance to perform financially in order to be viable and piracy will ultimately triumph. Warner Bros. might just have killed the Dune franchise.”
Christopher Nolan’s fears seemed to have been validated. In September of 2021, it was reported that Nolan had moved to Universal Studios, who would finance his next film, Oppenheimer. Nolan had been with Warner Bros. ever since his 2002 film Insomnia. Meanwhile, WB’s dual-release strategy was going questionably at best, with not a single one of the other 15+ films on their 2021 slate grossing as much as Godzilla vs. Kong. Big IP projects including The Matrix Resurrections and The Suicide Squad failed to gross more than 200 million worldwide. The third Conjuring film was able to turn a profit because of its relatively low budget, and Villeneuve’s Dune did well enough to warrant a sequel, but the studio still didn’t have any movies all year that did as well as your average Christopher Nolan flick would do in a normal year.
As HBO Max was struggling to build a subscriber base, Disney+ was quickly taking off, with WandaVision premiering as the first-ever Marvel Studios streaming show on the platform. Disney had opted for a different approach than Warner Bros. during the pandemic, either cancelling theatrical releases entirely and putting films like Pixar’s highly-underrated Luca straight onto the streaming platform, or allowing films like Black Widow and the Mulan remake to open in select theaters (depending on COVID restrictions) while simultaneously available on demand through Disney+ for an additional $30 (on top of subscription fees for the streamer). These approaches also drew criticism from many industry professionals (and a lawsuit from Scarlett Johansson over the Black Widow release), but Disney+ never found itself in the unfortunate position of being publicly declared “the worst streaming service” by one of their most respected and profitable filmmakers.
On October 10th, Universal Pictures officially announced the release date for Oppenheimer, which was July 21st, 2023. As the rest of the year went on, it became even clearer that Warner Bros.’ had screwed up royally. Their final theatrical/HBO Max release of the year was The Matrix Resurrections, which underperformed spectacularly, generating less than $40 million at the US box office, over $100 million down from the domestic total of the previous entry in the franchise. Exactly one week after Resurrections had its earliest release (in Mexico), and exactly one week before it was released stateside, Disney finished out 2021 on a high with Spider-Man: No Way Home, which was far and away the most successful release since the pandemic had begun. It grossed over $1.9 billion worldwide, more than four times as much as Warner’s biggest hit of that year, Godzilla vs. Kong. On April 8th, 2022, just over four months after Spider-Man’s release, WarnerMedia merged with Discovery Inc., and David Zaslav took over as CEO of the newly created Warner Bros. Discovery, the new parent company of Warner Bros. Inc. and HBO. Only two weeks later, WB announced the release date for Greta Gerwig’s Barbie. It was the same release date as Universal’s Oppenheimer: July 21st, 2023.
The mid-to-late-July release date has consistently been a staple for both WB and Christopher Nolan, so in a sense, neither of the dueling announcements were that surprising. The Dark Knight (2008) and its sequel The Dark Knight Rises (2012) were released in the US on July 18th and July 20th of their respective years. Inception (2010) was released on July 16th, and Dunkirk (2017) was released on July 21st. In recent years without Nolan releases, Warner have released other films including Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows — Part 2 on July 15th, 2011, The Conjuring on July 19th, 2013, and more recently, Black Adam on July 15, 2022. Universal, on the other hand, have typically avoided that release window in recent decades, with the exception of their two Mamma Mia! films, which were both released in mid-July. The first Mamma Mia! was actually released the same day as The Dark Knight, and while the two Mamma films combined did end up making over a billion dollars at the global box office (yes, really), conventional wisdom would say that ABBA fans are just a completely different demographic than your average Batman filmgoers.
Perhaps the “counter-programming” thinking was the justification behind Warner deciding to put Barbie up against Universal’s Oppenheimer. It was almost as if the two studios had switched their summer movie audiences. Warner had lost Nolan, but maybe they could rule mid-July with a movie-musical of their own. Meanwhile, Universal had acquired the biggest filmmaker in modern Hollywood, and had likely given him his preferred release date as part of his new contract. In any case, Warner Bros.’ release date for Barbie seemed to be deliberately confrontational, given Oppenheimer’s release date being announced first. But regardless of whether or not it was a petty move on Zaslav’s part, it was only the beginning of what has already proven to be one of the most controversial reigns in studio executive history.
2022
As Warner and Universal barreled towards their showdown, 2022 proved to be a mixed year for all of Hollywood. As vaccines had begun to enter the picture, it was less clear than ever whether streaming or theatrical releases were the way forwards for any of the major studios. Paramount’s decision to continuously delay Top Gun: Maverick for an exclusive theatrical release seemed to benefit them massively, offering a clear counter-argument to the dubious economics of putting expensive tentpole films on streaming services to try and attract new subscribers. Disney also experienced a bit of a rebound with three theatrically-released Marvel Studios films and a Christmas-time release of Avatar: The Way of Water, a franchise they had absorbed in their 2019 purchase of Twentieth Century Fox. Disney’s resurgence was short-lived as we will see, but the real Hollywood scandal that folks will remember from 2022 was how this new incarnation of Warner Bros. managed to do the unthinkable and prove themselves to be an even more devious studio than anyone previously thought was possible.
In August 2022, just under a year before the scheduled Barbenheimer showdown, it was announced that two nearly-completed films developed for HBO Max (soon to be merged with Discovery+ and renamed Max) would be thrown out entirely — a new Scooby Doo animated film, and a long-awaited Batgirl film. It was a completely unprecedented move, and re-ignited the industry hatred towards Warner Bros. that had only just begun to subside.
As frustrating as Disney pulling Luca from theaters was, at least that film did get a release on streaming. Even for folks who weren’t thrilled about a mid-budget straight-to-streaming Batgirl movie, it was still shocking to learn that the movie was never going to see the light of day, especially when said film included Brendan Fraser as a villain, as well as returning Batman franchise actors Michael Keaton and J.K. Simmons. David Zaslav tried to frame it as a “strategic shift” for WB, moving away from the streaming model and back to theaters for tentpoles. But surely there had to a better way to do that rather than to destroy a 90 million dollar film? Warner Bros. Discovery had seemingly established themselves as the most shrewd and ruthless corporation in the entertainment business. The subsequent reports about Batgirl’s cancellation being done for tax write-off purposes only fueled the vitriol towards Zaslav.
Meanwhile, Universal were doing better in terms of theatrical releases, but floundering in the streaming market. They had launched Peacock during lockdown in 2020, and fairly quickly employed a desperate tactic to boost subscribers — pulling The Office (the most streamed show of that year) from Netflix, and announcing that it would appear on Peacock early in 2021. Fans were furious, and the move did relatively little to boost subscribers. However, it still wasn’t the PR debacle that Warner (and to a lesser extent Disney) had found themselves in with their flippant attitudes over film releases. Furthermore, Universal saw a better box office return than Warner Bros. with three films in the top 10 for that year (Jurrasic World, Minions and Puss in Boots — see graph below). Less than Disney, but still better than WB, who just like the previous year, had only one film in the top 10.
2023
2023 started off poorly and only got worse. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania opened with $106 million at the U.S. box office — a number that would be healthy for any other studio, but was worrisome for Marvel/Disney. All three Marvel Studios films released in 2022 had opened to at least $140 million at the domestic box office and finished out their run with at least $750 million globally — with each one ending up in the top 10 for that year (see graph above). Ant-Man 3 finished up its run with less than $500 million worldwide (just outside the top 10 for the year), and also had the unfortunate distinction of being the second-ever MCU film to receive a “rotten” score from Rotten Tomatoes (the first being 2021’s Eternals).
Ant-Man 3 was the beginning of a truly dismal year for Disney, which was quite shocking considering how they had consistently been the highest grossing studio for years. In 2019 they generated a record-breaking $11 billion, by releasing 18 movies across their various different studios, 8 of which grossed at least $1 billion dollars. But in 2023 the hype had clearly cooled since Avengers: Endgame, and they seemed to now be falling victim to the same self-inflicted wound as Warner Bros.— they may have been able to bring new users to their streaming platform by offering new original content such as WandaVision and The Mandalorian, but now those same folks were less likely to go to the theater to see the films they assumed would show up on Disney+ in a few months time. Additionally, the creation of streaming shows linked to their major properties had begun to oversaturate their crown jewel franchises, making the theatrical releases feel less special.
2023 was Disney’s 100th anniversary, and every film they released that year had a special edition of the logo to commemorate what should have been a celebratory year for them. But the studio who had released 8 separate $1 billion hits only four years prior failed to have a single film cross that milestone in their big birthday year. As evidenced in the graph below, their highest grossing film of the year was Guardians Of The Galaxy (GOTG) Vol. 3, which grossed slightly less than the previous film in James Gunn’s cosmic superhero trilogy. In addition to Ant-Man, they also saw massive disappointments with other franchise offerings, including a 5th Indiana Jones film, a Haunted Mansion reboot, and most egregiously, The Marvels (a sequel to 2019’s billion-dollar Captain Marvel), which had the lowest domestic opening weekend of any MCU film in history, generating almost half of what Black Widow had done in the US in 2020 — despite that film being released in the middle of lockdowns with the option to stream online for extra fees. It ended its run as the lowest-grossing Marvel Studios film ever. On top of that, their original animated film Wish flopped at the domestic box office only a few weeks later.
By the time Barbenheimer finally rolled around in mid-July, the entertainment industry as a whole was biting its nails, and not just because of Disney. Nearly every franchise was underperforming compared to their pre-pandemic releases, including Universal’s Fast X and Paramount’s Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One.
Warner Bros. was also struggling, with the spectacular failure of The Flash being the most notable. Not long after their shelving of Batgirl, Warner appointed writer-director James Gunn as the co-CEO of a new subdivision called DC Studios, which would hope to finally truly compete with Marvel. Although it would have been nearly impossible to keep this a secret, the announcement had a similar effect to Warner announcing their streaming plan back in 2020 — it completely deflated any amount of enthusiasm about upcoming DC films, as comic book fans now felt it was worthless to stay invested in a franchise that was already announced to have a reboot only a few years off. The much-publicized troubles of Flash star Ezra Miller and the bizarre marketing tactics used by WB to try and drum up excitement for the much-delayed film (including a suspicious endorsement from Tom Cruise) didn’t seem to help either. As a result, none of the four DC superhero films released by Warner Bros. in 2023 generated more than a half-billion dollars each, with the highest-grossing of the bunch being James Wan’s sequel to Aquaman, which still couldn’t make 50% globally of what the previous entry had made in 2018.
But through savvy marketing, Barbie was drumming up more hype for a WB franchise than anything in years. It was clear that the meme department was working overtime with this one. Everything about Barbie seemed to be carefully constructed to have maximum impact on popular culture, from the casting, to the soundtrack, to the 2001: A Space Odyssey spoof that was the first trailer (and eventually the film’s intro). And then something curious begun to happen — not only were there Barbie memes, there were Barbenheimer memes. Some of this was clearly orchestrated by Warner Bros. (notably an incredibly misguided post that led to boycotts in Japan) but much of the attention was surprisingly organic. Even for folks that had no idea about the thorny Hollywood studio politics that had led to these two tentpole films facing off against each other, the idea of a movie about the father of the atomic bomb opening on the same day as a Margot Robbie toy commercial was too ridiculous to not turn into a meme.
And when the films opened, it was immediately clear that the cross-pollination effect had boosted the profile of both films. Suddenly legacy media outlets were running articles on which movie you had to go to first in order to do the double feature correctly. Publications who had been reporting dire warnings about the post-pandemic, post-streaming landscape of theatrical film releases were crediting the two movies with “saving” theatrical releases. Tom Cruise, whose own film Dead Reckoning was underperforming (in part because of its release coming only a week before the showdown), gave an interview talking about his plans to see both films over the weekend. All of it couldn’t have come at a better time, as suddenly the second of two massive strikes (the Writers Guild and Actors Guild) kicked off in Hollywood, which was dramatically illustrated by the cast of Oppenheimer walking out of the premiere of the film.
While the writer’s strike (which had begun back in May of that year) had potentially more dramatic implications for the film industry as a whole, with a major focus on AI-generated content, the actor’s strike had perhaps a more significant effect on the theatrical box office, as actors no longer were able to promote films in interviews and TV appearances. The Marvels was absolutely a victim of this, as superhero films rely more heavily on cast appearances for their promotional cycles than other franchises. The Barbenheimer phenomenon existed in the eye of the storm; everything before it underperformed because of the disastrous crisis management of film studios during COVID, and everything after it underperformed because of strikes that were the result of those same studios undervaluing actors and writers. And perhaps the most concerning part of it all? This box-office-saving showdown would have never happened if Christopher Nolan had remained with Warner Bros. to release Oppenheimer. There are many alternate futures to envision here, but most of them paint an even bleaker picture than the one we got.
2024
At time of writing this, Warner Bros. do indeed have more than one film in the top 10 highest-grossing movies of 2024 so far but none of them have been released in the summer season. Warner recently saw a massive disappointment with Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, which was supposed to be their big summer kickoff, and wound up with the worst memorial day opening in decades. This is incredibly disturbing for a number of reasons, not least of which that it’s an excellent film and miles better than Warner’s own Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire.
There has been a lot of speculation as to why Furiosa did so poorly at the box office, despite being a prequel to a 6-time Oscar-winning film and having excellent critical reviews. Some people blame the 9-year gap (which was extended by COVID) between Fury Road and Furiosa, and others claim that Anya Taylor-Joy just isn’t a big enough draw. While these are almost certainly contributing factors, all four other Mad Max films are now streaming on Max in the US, and other streaming services around the world. With inflation driving up ticket prices, even fans of the franchise are just biding their time until they can watch this latest entry at home.
By establishing the precedent of sending major films straight-to-streaming, Warner Bros. permanently disrupted the cinematic release economy, which has yet to fully rebound to pre-pandemic numbers. Since existing under their new parent company Warner Bros. Discovery, they have also established themselves as an economic enterprise that is willing to trash hundreds of millions of dollars worth of art and labor just to get tax breaks. While executives like Ann Sarnoff, Jason Kilar and David Zaslav will likely continue to profit off of WB properties until the day they die, many other artists and professionals in the film industry have seen their chances at profitability dwindle with each passing year. And just as Barbie may have been a massive hit for WB, it also clearly boosted Oppenheimer’s box office take to an amount that Zaslav and co were almost certainly not anticipating, let alone comfortable with. This is to say nothing of the fact that Oppenheimer also won every major award at the Oscars, including the ones that Barbie was famously not even nominated for.
2023 was an awful year for the box office, and 2024 is shaping up to be even worse, especially without a headline-worthy showdown. Ironically, this whole summer seems to hang on two Disney movies— Pixar’s Inside Out 2, and Marvel Studios first-ever R-rated film, Deadpool & Wolverine, which is being released on a certain late-July weekend.
WB have been the guiding force in creating a hostile film market that benefits almost no one, including themselves. By attempting to save money during a deadly global pandemic, they inadvertently created a new kind of Hollywood that they seem entirely incapable of navigating. They bet all their chips on trying to rescue their once-failing streaming service, and as a result, every studio has diluted their brands by creating straight-to-streaming spinoff shows that no one asked for, while theaters are struggling, and writers and actors are striking. It’s clear that Zaslav and co are now finally rethinking their approach, with recent announcements such as Warner Bros. Discovery hiring former Obama press secretary Robert Gibbs to help them with media management. Or the shakeup of moving big IP projects such as upcoming Harry Potter and Green Lantern tv shows away from Max and on to HBO. While these are promising updates and show a more level-headed approach than the slash and burn tactics we’ve been seeing for the past two years, it’s difficult to say if it’s possible to undo the damage that has already been done.
It appears that the only person who is impervious to the destruction they have wrought is the very man they once used to rely on to carry their summer blockbuster season — Christopher Nolan, who is currently residing at their competitor studio. Don’t worry though, Zaslav, I’m sure he’ll come back around. For the right price. And a nice juicy late July release date.
Related: Which Actors Have Worked With Christopher Nolan the Most?
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