Tenet Director Christopher Nolan Speaks Out Against WB's Decision To Put Movies On HBO Max

"Clearly, Warner Media intends to sacrifice a considerable portion of the profitability of its movie studio division, and that of its production partners and filmmakers, to subsidize its HBO Max startup," Adam Aron, CEO and president of AMC Entertainment.

Well, of course the CEO of AMC would say that. WB moving to streaming is killing his business.

On the other hand, however, HBO Max has 38M subscribers. At 14.99 that's nearly $570M monthly. That's better than many of those new movies would make.

Couple with that a subscriber bump these movies will bring and possible expansion to other countries, it's hard to see the "loss of profit" he's talking about.

I think the real loss is in the experience, the larger than life screen, big room filling audio, even thou my setup at home is better quality.

On the other hand, theaters are constantly ruined by cellphones and people. People are the reason I go to the movies in the Morning or Afternoon, a week or 2 after they come out.

Theaters are a luxury experience. Any one-percenter who wants that can build his own big-screen experience. Besides, with movies increasingly catering exclusively to Chinese audiences, we might be 10 or 15 years away from our Netflix queues giving top-billing to such gripping films like "The Good Comrade is Subservient to the Party," "Let Us Have Many Male Heirs To Spread Chinese Prosperity Globally," and "Top Gun 2."

Good riddance to bad Hollywood rubbish. Even when the golden age of TV fades, games are now in their infancy in terms of their cultural significance - Hollywood needed to adapt, now it will die.

Reading the comments below, I can see that most people are not really understanding why there is such an uproar.

First, WB is going to lose money on almost all of these movies. Even adding subscriptions, they will not be able to recoup the production, distribution, and marketing expenses that these movies incurred. While a sub to HBOMax is 15 dollars, it all does not go to Wonder Woman, or whatever movie is being released that month. A lot of the movies on their service they had to pay content rights for, and the others they paid the production costs. They will gain some money from the theatrical distributions from this, so that will be a plus for them and the theaters, but it wont be anywhere near what they were expecting to make when they green lit these projects.

Second, actors, directors, producers, etc, are looking at something that could be potentially devastating for them. Some of them take little to not pay to make a movie, and in return they are paid in royalties. With these films guaranteed to make a loss, it will be a long time before they make any kind of a profit, so they can getting royalties. Nolan didn't want to state it in these terms, but that is what is really at stake for some who worked on these films.

Third, Legendary is a production company, and they paid for the production of two of these movies. WB making this decision, is forcing Legendary to lose money. Now, there was always a risk that the movie would be released and bomb, so I will be curious to see how a lawsuit (if they bring one forward) will play out. I would think they would have a good chance at winning, since this was a decision by WB, that would cost them to lose money, instead of naturally occurring market forces. If they successfully get WB to buy the movies outright from them, that make cause a ripple effect through the rest of the slate of movies, in terms of compensation for people who have something at stake in the success of the product.

Finally, WB, as well as all other studios, are in a tough position. In the forseable future, theatrical releases will not be profitable. They could hold the films back, but they might not be able to operate much longer without recouping some of the expenses that they incurred on all those films that were produced, as well as others that are in production. In terms of WB, they have a streaming service, so using the movies to increase subscribers into that service would be a positive in a very negative situation.

Also, quit covid and rich shaming people. While I hate Hollywood's tendency to try to force their politics and views onto people, I wont ever attack them for being successful. They also have bills to pay, debts, etc. As for covid, stay home or don't, but quit trying to force your views on others. People need to pay their bills, feed their families, and pursue their own happiness. The government is not the answer, they cannot support millions of people who are losing their jobs due to covid hysteria (the government is broke also). Let's quit attacking one another, and try to understand the complexities of living in the world today.

As much as I love the idea of having day 1 movies on HBO Max, I do have to say that watching at home most people will lose the superior sound and giant visuals theaters are made for... especially on IMAX.

So I understand the point coming from highly technical directors like Nolan, and James Cameron being disappointed with such news.

Through Covid I don't mind watching at home, but once it's gone, I'm going back to IMAX.

I wonder if this will cause our Hollywood culture lords to pump their brakes on the "stay home, save lives" lecturing? When the proletariats can't spend money at the theater, streaming's call to varsity got put on the fast track.

Defund Hollywood & their political agendas! I am happy anytime I see these stuck up elitists be force fed the pill of the average man.

Roll the thing...Ricky Gervais...."Nobody wants to hear your political views....so shut up!"

The comments by Christopher Nolan, and others, just reeks of desperation. They know what a company like Warner Brothers has to do in these trying times, and he (and others) are terrified this is going to accelerate the trends towards the streaming future.

The fact is, for years and years, the movie studio and theatre industry has gone way too greedy with pricing and a lack of enforcement of rules within the exhibition itself, which has pushed people away. When you couple that with how cheap it is to get a good home theatre, and all the content available on streaming for relatively low prices, it's obvious this is the future.

These Hollywood elites won't admit it, but the only thing they're truly concerned about is that their revenue streams won't be as high as they were, and they won't be able to live that really cushy lifestyle anymore.

Agree with Nolan 100%. Myself, along with other people I know and people in the industry itself don't trust Warner to go back to normal in 2022 and beyond.

I drank the kool-aid and went to see Tenet in the theater. It was really, really loud, but that was about it.

The "theatrical experience" didn't make the movie any better. In fact, I just watched it online and I could actually hear the dialogue this time, so it may have been better.

I'd love to know what Nolan's solution would be. We already know releasing movies in theaters only isn't successful right now, ironically proven by Nolan's own Tenet. Not sure how financially beneficial it would be to sit on the movies until theaters open and audiences are ready to fill theaters. WB invested millions, perhaps billions, into these movies and they're not going to shelve them with no way to recoup money and without knowing when they can release them or if a theater only release would even be successful.

There is at least a precident that people will subscribe to a streaming service to watch movies and with an entire slight of blockbuster movies you have to imagine many people will have no issue paying for a HBO Max subscription to watch at least some of these movies.

So here is the deal all, this HBO deal is pretty lucrative. 😊 And the Publishers/producers (people that back the creation) have signed on to this to get some money out of this before the calendar year is so crowded that upcoming movies have no room to get back investments, and sets have to be shut down. So this allows digital in areas that are heavy with the pandemic and do not have cinemas opened, but also allows countries that have it under control to show em. Money money.

But - the studios and investors - will get digital distribution rates not theatrical rates. When the digital streaming comes out a day or week after theatrical is released. They will get less money. 😥 News is reporting that they are hatching out higher rates and all should be happy ...ish. So this is rich people whining about not getting richer faster by making dumb movies like Fast and Furious , even if it greatly increases the risk of poor people getting sick and dying. 💀💀💀💀... okay just imagine 284 thousand of these 💀.

Whine more Nolan. Health and safety is more important than your "vision"

Is it any surprise that a successful filmmaker whose films - even ones of dubious quality or merit - manage to fill theaters is upset about losing out on theater profits?

Welcome to modern America, Mister Nolan. Movie theaters are running on fumes, and a country (indeed, a world) that’s gone without them for so long now sees the cons outweighing the pros of the theater-going experience. The day of the blockbuster is gone, and Hollywood has burned a lot of bridges and sacrificed a lot of good will on the altar of political proselytizing. Can they recover? Yes - if they change the model.

Instead of being afraid of the change, try embracing it. Then maybe you won’t be left behind.

I dislike going to movie theatres, people being annoying or rude and missing parts of the movie if you need to use the restroom. And the crowds, If I ever went to a theatre it was for that must see movie of the year, but I'd go a week later to avoid a packed theatre. I will miss the crowd cheering when appropriate and the feeling of being witness to an premier special event (like watching the star wars movies and people tossing beach balls throughout the room before the movie stated). For others that still need that, it will be back. But having the choice of where we watch movies is an important step forward for moviegoers.

So warner bros decision seems like a natural progression especially given the state of the world right now. I'd rather spend $20 to watch a new movie day one from the comfort of my home or in this case subscribe to hbomax. It is awesome to have a drink, pause when I need to and watch the movie in a relaxed familiar atmosphere of my choice. The only current down side is the roku deal has not finalized yet.

I'm legitimately asking why is this such a big deal ? Apart from the obvious job loss at the movie theaters and I guess piracy, why are people up in arms ? The people involved are still making the money .

Hasn't this been the natural progression of how this business was going to end up anyway . Don't get me wrong I loved going to the movies opening night with friends but as I got older and had a kid it was almost impossible to go to the theaters.

I have been hopping some streaming service would have come around by now and just offered what ever was in theaters in my own home . Id have gladly paid to have that convince.

I've seen there argument about "these experiences were made for the big screen" but is that the general consensus of the populous or "artistic preference" each have there valid cases but with the cost of larger TVs going down and the fact that its not nearly as expensive as it once was to get a nice home sound system I feel the people that would care about that kind of stuff already have things at home to fully enjoy this stuff and the people who don't probaly don't care as long as there entertained for a few hours.

But if some one is able to shed some light on this I'd love to discuss it because I am genuinely curious.

"What you have right now in our business is a lot of the use of the pandemic as an excuse for sort of grappling for short-term advantage," he said. "And it's really unfortunate. It's not the way to do business and it's not the best thing for the health of our industry"

Uh...actually, that's the very definition of doing business. You go where the money is, and when you're struggling due to whatever factors are ruining the bottom line-low revenue, declining demand, etc-you evolve and adapt your business to benefit from current market trends. If you don't, you're out of business. Do all the filmmakers really want to see a major movie production studio go out of business entirely? Or would you rather suck it up and take the movie rental method?

Seriously, industries have been going obsolete and vanishing for millennia, but because everyone has a mouth piece now they're acting all surprised, like their industry should somehow be the exception to what is very natural progress. It just so happens that progress is an "act of god".

Can someone tell Nolan to just shut up.