These days, Christopher Nolan is one of the few directors who is given creative carte blanche and blockbuster sized budgets so he can create his own original visions on the big screen. But there was a time he was just another independent filmmaker trying to get noticed, and even fifteen years on from "Memento," he still remembers very clearly that at one time, no one in Hollywood wanted anything to do with him or his narratively tricky little movie.
"We organized a big distribution screening in L.A. the weekend all the distributors were coming to town for the Spirit Awards," he said recently at BAFTA (via THR). “But every distributor passed [on it] in one night — nobody wanted it. Some of the distributors were really awful to us, actually, and said they’d walked out of the film. It was a really, really tough ride … pretty devastating."
It’s a sobering reminder that pretty much every director had to scrape their way to get noticed. In Nolan’s case, once the movie did find it’s way to screens, his hard work paid off with a healthy box office for the indie film. It earned critical acclaim and, more crucially, an open door into Hollywood. "It was a really unique road. I don’t think I’ll ever have a moment like that [again] in my career," Nolan said. However, he does have advice for those who are making their way with their movie careers — be ready to seize the moment when it arrives.
"The thing that happens to a lot of people is that you get that opportunity, somebody says, ‘I really loved your film, what else do you have?’ And if you don’t have anything, or if you’ve just got vague ideas, it’s very difficult to take advantage of that moment, and that moment doesn’t come around again," Nolan shared. "You’ve got to jump on it."
READ MORE: Ranked: The Films Of Christopher Nolan
But the question on everyone’s mind right now is, where does Christopher Nolan go after "Interstellar"? Tell us below what you think he should get up to next.
Great read…… Personally as a Nolan fan I think there\’s really only one place for him to go next; The aftelife.
I think if any director has the creativity, the ability and the balls to challenge our thinking on the afterlife, it\’s Nolan.
Josephine| Apr 6, 2015 8:29am
"Interesring article, but a little proofreading…"
Yeah, I wholeheartedly agree!
Distributors are idiots, and that\’s the point of this piece. They don\’t know a good film when they see it, and even after they sign on, they often mishandle the distribution by going too wide too soon or by releasing a film at the wrong time of the year. They refuse to spend on advertising to promote small art films, and just expect an audience to materialize out of nowhere. Indie film distributors are a sad lot. It\’s too bad there isn\’t something like Amazon for indie films. I guess that\’s what VOD is, but it\’s a big mess, too, with no central place you can go to see new indies. I\’m really not worried about what Nolan is going to do next. What I\’d like to know is do the distributors get the VOD profits? And why aren\’t the VOD numbers made public the way the box office numbers are? I\’m getting the idea that it\’s faster and easier for distributors to make money off of VOD than it is for them to place the films in theaters. So they have less incentive to try and make a film get wider distribution.
correct the typos? but then it wouldn\’t be a Playlist blogicle.
Solidarity 😉
Interesring article, but a little proofreading would be a good idea, correct the typos. js