As more trailers, posters, set photos, set footage and general info about Inception gets released/found out, we’re finally starting to get more of an idea of what the movie will entail. However the project is still shrouded in more mystery than 99% of movies released these days – something I’m interested to see if they keep up when it comes time to start marketing it like crazy to audiences.
Amongst all the updates about Inception, one of the things notably absent is talk from the man who’s responsible for writing and directing it, Christopher Nolan. But recently he spoke about the project to Hero Complex, where he said it’s the biggest challenge he’s ever taken on. That includes bringing The Joker back to the big-screen, and delivering a mammoth of a movie with The Dark Knight (I can’t even imagine how hard that was to get right).
Nolan said they’ve, “put a lot of different things into the pot with this one.” When asked by LA Times if the movie is an international thriller; a story of madness and lost love; or Hollywood’s first metaphysical heist movie, Nolan replied that it’s, “all of the above.” That’s a lot for one movie to be, but if there’s anyone that can make such a mix work, it’s Nolan.
Here’s the quote where Nolan says Inception is his biggest challenge yet:
“This is the biggest challenge I’ve taken on to this point… We’re trying to tell a story on a massive scale, a true blockbuster scale – the biggest I’ve ever been involved with. We tried to make a very large-scale film with ‘The Dark Knight’ and with this one we wanted to push that even further.”
That’s going to be a difficult task, especially since Inception doesn’t have the expansive source material that the two Batman movies did; this is an original script by Nolan. The movie reportedly has a budget of around $200 million, so it ain’t another Memento he’s making in terms of scale. I’m guessing since Nolan delivered a billion-dollar-plus movie with TDK the studio was happy to give him a big budget for a project like Inception. I’ll be interested to see if it does as well at the box office (will most people go just because it’s a film ‘From the director of The Dark Knight?’).
In the interview, Nolan also compared it to the James Bond franchise, of which he’s been a fan of since childhood:
“I grew up watching James Bond films and loving those and watching spy movies with their globetrotting sensibility…. We get to do that here, not just geographically but also in time and dimensions of reality as well. We get to make a movie that’s expansive, I suppose you’d say, in four dimensions.”
According to Nolan and his producer, Emma Thomas (who’s also his wife), they never set out to “top The Dark Knight,” but that the story for Inception ultimately translates into a movie which is “enormous.” The shoot ended up taking Nolan and Co. to six different countries, ranging from the U.S. and UK to France and even Japan. Everything about it points to something truly special that we’re in store for.
Note: Buried within the Hero Complex article is the info that Nolan, “may return to Gotham City for his next feature.” Now that may just be a general piece of speculation and not something that Nolan said off-hand during the interview. But I just thought you fans out there would like to know about it 🙂 .
The last Inception trailer was just as enigmatic as you’d expect from Nolan, but it solidified the film as my No. 1 most anticipated movie of 2010 (yes, even more than Iron Man 2 and Kick-Ass). Even without Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, Nolan has made some amazing movies (Memento, The Prestige) and I think he’s truly one of the great directors of our time. This summer can’t get here fast enough.
What do you think of what Nolan has said about Inception? Do you think it will be bigger than The Dark Knight (in terms of scope, not box office)?
If you’re still confused as to what Inception is and could be about, be sure to check out Screen Rant Senior Editor Kofi Outlaw’s “Deciphering Chris Nolan’s Inception” article.
Inception is currently in post-production (Nolan took a break from the editing process to do the above interview), and hits theaters on July 16th, 2010.
