Christopher Nolan's new movie, Tenet, is the long-awaited followup to his 2017 Oscar-nominated historical drama Dunkirk. The official title was announced by Warner Bros. on Wednesday morning, and according to The Hollywood Reporter [1], the "action epic" will be shot in seven countries and the plot will have something to do with international spies and time travel. The release date isn't until July 17, 2020, but we're already at the edge of our seats, and you can bet we'll continue speculating on everything else there is to know about the film until then. Read on to see all that's been released so far about his upcoming action thriller.
Who's Involved?
BlacKkKlansmen's John David Washington will be starring in the film, along with Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Michael Caine, Elizabeth Debicki, and Dimple Kapadia. To all Harry Potter [2] fans out there: Robert Pattinson [3] and Clémence Poésy will also be reuniting on set in supporting roles alongside Kenneth Branagh, who appeared as Gilderoy Lockhart in the first movie.
Producers for the film include Christopher Nolan and his wife and collaborative producer Emma Thomas. Ludwig Göransson, who composed Black Panther [4]'s Oscar-winning score, will also be responsible for the upcoming film's ethereal soundtrack.
What Does the Title Even Mean?
Typical of Christopher Nolan's one-word, emblematic movie titles — such as Inception, Memento, and Dunkirk — Tenet, which is defined as a principle or belief, is both specific yet cryptic enough to keep us churning out the riddle for its uncannily feasible relation to the espionage. Reddit threads [5] are already bubbling up in attempts to theorize the meaning behind the title.
What About Those Time Travel Theories?
We already know that Christopher Nolan loves concepts surrounding the fluidity of time, and THR sources say the film will incorporate similar elements of time perception seen in Interstellar. While certain aspects of time travel have been touched upon in both Interstellar and Inception, the past and future have always been depicted as independent, unalterable, and inaccessible states to escape to from the present. As in Dunkirk, this film largely surrounds the events of World War II, so dealing with time could likely mean affecting these historical moments in some way. According to THR, this could be a viable reason why the movie may premiere a sequence explicitly based around time travel itself.
So The Movie's About Spies . . . What Else?
That's about all we know, actually. But according to Robert Pattinson [6], the script is "unreal."
"I've been a little weary of doing movies for years and years, but there's just something about Chris Nolan's stuff," he told USA Today [7]. "He seems like the only director now who can do what is essentially a very personal, independent movie that has a huge scale."
Looks like we'll just have to sit tight for the next 14 months until the movie finally hits theatres. As Christopher Nolan wisely stated in 2014 while anticipating the release of the then-mysterious Interstellar [8], "We all want to unwrap our Christmas presents early . . . But we all know we'll be disappointed if we do."