Director Christopher Nolan leaves 20-year partnership with Warner Bros

The mind behind the Batman blockbusters has signed up with Universal for a nine-figure drama about the creation of the atomic bomb

Writer/producer/director Christopher Nolan attends the 26th Annual Santa Barbara International Film Festival at the Arlington Theater on January 30, 2011 in Santa Barbara, California. (Photo by John M. Heller/Getty Images)

The mind behind Memento, the Dark Knight and Inception, film director Christopher Nolan, will be making his next feature for content titans Universal - ending a near-two-decade relationship with Warner Bros.

News broke in Hollywood today of the new arrangement, which sees Universal stump up over $100m (€84.5m) to back a drama about scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer and the creation of the atomic bomb - as well as his later calls for control of nuclear weapons and his opposition to further developments in the medium.

Filming is slated for the first quarter of 2022, with a release set for either late 2023 or 2024.

Robert Pattinson and John David Washington in Tenet - a Nolan film troubled by the realities of the Covid crisis and streaming

Tensions with Warner Bros. were exacerbated by the shift in business model employed by the conglomerate over the course of the Covid crisis, releasing its entire slate of American features to its HBOMax streaming service at the same time as the cinemas, to take advantage of captive eyeballs amid the lockdowns - including his latest brainbender 'Tenet'.

In a particular caustic remark at the time, Nolan remarked: “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”.

Christian Bale as Batman in Warner Bros. Pictures' and Legendary Pictures' action thriller, "The Dark Knight Rises", one of Nolan's Dark Knight series set in the world of the DC superhero

Among the rumoured terms for Nolan's sign-on with Universal were control and sign-off on release dates, and an extended window for theatrical releases before future films go to streaming, and to a lesser extent, the surviving home video market, including DVD, Blu-ray and UHD/4K Blu-ray.

It follows a demanding set of terms he was able to impose on former partners Warners - including a three-week blackout on new releases prior to the cinematic debut of his films.

While the subject matter of Nolan's next piece doesn't scream 'summer blockbuster', there's no denying his track record, and his ability to turn the story into a prestige picture for the ages.