Christopher Nolan won't make a movie for 'mindless' Netflix

Christopher Nolan won’t be among the directors heading for Netflix, branding their movie releasing strategy as ‘mindless’.

The streaming service, which in recent years has become an increasingly serious force in filmmaking, does release movies theatrically, but does so simultaneously with its online service.

This is the bit that clearly gets the ‘Dunkirk’ helmsman riled up.

Asked in an interview with Indiewire if he’d make a movie for Netflix, he said: “No. Well, why would you? If you make a theatrical film, it’s to be played in theaters. Netflix has a bizarre aversion to supporting theatrical films.

“They have this mindless policy of everything having to be simultaneously streamed and released, which is obviously an untenable model for theatrical presentation. So they’re not even getting in the game, and I think they’re missing a huge opportunity.”

And it seems he’s always felt this way.

“I grew up in the ‘80s, the birth of home video,” he went on. “Your worst nightmare in the 90s as a filmmaker was that the studio would turn around and go, ‘You know what? We’re going to put it on video instead of theatres.’ They did that all the time. There’s nothing new in that.”

Now Amazon Studios, on the other hand, he’s much more open to.

“You can see that Amazon is very clearly happy to not make that same mistake,” he added.

“The theatres have a 90-day window. It’s a perfectly usable model. It’s terrific.”

Netflix recently released what many think will be its first major hit, Bong Joon Ho’s sci-fi ‘Okja’, while ‘The Meyerwitz Stories’, from indie darling Noah Baumbach was lauded with praise on its debut in Cannes.

“I think the investment that Netflix is putting into interesting filmmakers and interesting projects would be more admirable if it weren’t being used as some kind of bizarre leverage against shutting down theaters,” Nolan added.

“It’s so pointless. I don’t really get it.”

Nolan’s latest, the World War II movie ‘Dunkirk’, is out – in cinemas – across the UK from July 21.

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