Christopher Nolan’s thought-provoking films ordinarily take us on a wild ride, often dazzling us with spectacle. From psychological films such as Memento to the most recent, time-defying Tenet, Nolan is here to entertain. Well, director Christopher Nolan reveals his interest in the Video Games industry.
On December 20th, Geoff Keighley hosted a live Tenet Q&A on Youtube. At the 26:00 mark, he’s asked if he’d ever want to adapt one of his films into a video game.
What Christopher Nolan had to say
“We’ve looked at some of them over the years. We went fairly far down the road with it (an Inception game, suggests Keighley). But of course what you realize is, you know, making films is complicated. It takes a long time. Making video games is even more complicated, and it takes even longer.” Time constraints cause problems for many game developers. Many of our favorites end up delaying games for months, years even. As someone who takes his time with his films, it’s great to see him recognize this.
He continues, offering his perspective on the industry and film-to-game adaptations. “And the way the video game industry works,” he says, “You don’t want to just be doing a licensed game. You don’t want to just be tying in with something and using the brand established by the film. Same way, actually, you don’t when people do a video game adaptation to film, from a video game. You don’t want it to just draft off the brand. You want it to be something great in its own right.”
He is keenly aware of the difficulties of making films and video games. “I think my time and energy, I’ve wound up devoting it all to film and seeing how difficult that is, it’s not something you’d ever take on lightly. But it’s definitely something I’m interested in,” he added.
He wants a new IP
Depending on whom you talk to, he is one of his generation’s greatest directors, or he’s overrated. Where do I stand? I love the man’s films. So, if he wades into the gaming waters, I welcome him fully. It’s a relief to hear his distaste for lazy adaptions.
Across all his films, there are no sequels and little tie-in material. There’s Batman: Gotham Knight, a compilation of animated Batman features; One of them takes place between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. Also, there’s the Batman Begins video game that EA published back in 2005. Yet, Nolan fathoms an entirely separate IP that exists independently, and I want that game.
