By The cast for Christopher Nolan's forthcoming film will include Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth Debicki and John David Washington, according to Variety.
Both Debicki and Washington come to the project off the back of lauded performances in films released last year, Debicki for her role in Steve McQueen's Widows and Washington for playing the policeman who infiltrated the KKK, Ron Stallworth in Spike Lee's BlacKkKlansman. Pattinson's recent films include critically-acclaimed releases such as Good Time, The Lost City of Z, and he has a role in Claire Denis' forthcoming film High Life.
Nolan has now finished the script for the thus far untitled film. Although early rumours claimed the film was set to be "North by North West meets Inception", this was later denied and confirmed as false by Warner Brothers to Esquire.
What it is actually about is being kept firmly under wraps, although Variety report that, "One insider described the pic as a massive action blockbuster, which will again be shown in IMAX.
It's unsurprising that he's gearing up for another big screen event given the director's vocal support for cinema over streaming platforms. Speaking at the UK Cinema Association Conference earlier this month he said, “My memories are not just of the films themselves and the amazing adventures unfolding on screen; they’re also of the sense of occasion, of being a young child entering an architectural space that’s so much bigger and grander than myself; the thrill of the curtains opening, moving to enlarge the screen for a widescreen presentation.”
He's also joined forces with director Paul Thomas Anderson to wage a war against motion smoothing settings on televisions that ruin the visual experience intended by filmmakers. In short, he really loves the cinema.
While his latest release is sure to be a cinematic event with amazing production, it's unlikely to be an action blockbuster featuring superheroes or wild car explosions. Instead Nolan's school of blockbuster filmmaking usually results in movies that play with the passage of time, circle around trickery and illusion and feature characters that blur the line between good and bad.
Dunkirk did earn Nolan his first directorial Oscar nomination but the film didn't ever seem to threaten to take the award. Though Guillermo del Toro went on to clinch the prize for his fantasy love story The Shape of Water, the prize became a touchpoint for the conversation about diversifying the type of stories being told, with Greta Gerwig and Jordan Peele both nominated and gaining huge support for Ladybird and Get Out respectively.
In the past Nolan's films have included a very high profile male actor or actors at the centre of the storyline. Dunkirk had Tom Hardy, Cillian Murphy and Mark Rylance, Interstellar was led by Matthew McConaughey off the back of his Oscar win, and The Dark Knight trilogy boasted Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Michael Caine and Gary Oldman.
The cast for this project feels like a change in direction for Nolan, and might even be his first film with a female lead given Debicki's rising stock in Hollywood.
The movie is slated for a release on 17 July 2020.
