Despite gaining a cult following, Chris Nolan’s 2000 neo-noir thriller put off movie bosses from hiring him until producer Steven Soderbergh helped to endorse him.
AceShowbiz -Warner Bros. almost declined to hire Christopher Nolan because of “Memento“. The “Oppenheimer” filmmaker enjoyed a long and illustrious partnership with the studio – which started with 2002’s “Insomnia” and ended with “Tenet” in 2020 – but producer Steven Soderbergh has revealed Nolan’s agent Dan Aloni told him bosses were put off by his 2000 time loop classic.
“Cut to months later, Dan calls me and he goes, ‘Look, there’s this script over at Warner, Insomnia. Chris is really interested in it, but Warner won’t take the meeting.’ And I go, ‘What do you mean they won’t take the meeting?’ And he goes, ‘Well, the executive there didn’t like Memento,’ ” he told Rolling Stone magazine.
“And I said, ‘Well, so what? Why won’t they take the meeting?’ So, I called that executive and I said, ‘Take the meeting. You’ve got to take the meeting.’ And he goes, ‘But I didn’t like the movie.’ And I go, ‘Well, did you like the movie-making?’ And he goes, ‘Well, yeah, it’s brilliantly made.’ And I go, ‘Take the meeting.’ “
The partnership between Nolan and studio lasted for 19 years, but they split after he criticised Warner’s move to exclusively stream their 2021 films on HBO Max during the pandemic. In a statement at the end of 2020, he said, “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.”
“Warner Bros. had an incredible machine for getting a filmmaker’s work out everywhere, both in theaters and in the home, and they are dismantling it as we speak. They don’t even understand what they’re losing. Their decision makes no economic sense, and even the most casual Wall Street investor can see the difference between disruption and dysfunction.”
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