By Jake Coyle, Film Writer
NEW YORK (AP) --After a public fallout over release strategy with Warner Bros., Christopher Nolan's next film, about J. Robert Oppenheimer and the development of the atom bomb, will be released by Universal Pictures.
Representatives for the studio confirmed Tuesday that Universal has acquire the rights to finance and distribute Nolan's not-yet-titled film. Deadline Hollywood first reported the deal.
Nolan also wrote the film's script about the theoretical physicist. Production is expected to begin early next year.
With only a handful of exceptions, Warner Bros. had long been home to Nolan going back to 2002's "Insomnia." With the studio he made "The Dark Knight" trilogy, the best-picture nominee "Dunkirk," the 2010 mind-bender "Inception" and 2020's time-traveling "Tenet." (Warner Bros. handled international distribution on 2006's "The Prestige" and 2014's "Interstellar.")
Last year, Warner Bros. launched "Tenet" in theaters in September at a time when much of the film industry was timid about releasing big-budget movies. The sci-fi thriller ultimately grossed $363.7 million, making it easily the biggest Hollywood pandemic release of the year.
But when Warner Bros. in December announced plans to release all of its 2021 films simultaneously on HBO Max, Nolan — long an ardent advocate for the theatrical experience — was one of the studio's harshest critics. In a statement, he said "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."
"Warner Bros. had an incredible machine for getting a filmmaker's work out everywhere, both in theaters and in the home, and they are dismantling it as we speak," wrote Nolan. "They don't even understand what they're losing. Their decision makes no economic sense, and even the most casual Wall Street investor can see the difference between disruption and dysfunction."
Shortly thereafter, he called the studio's plans "a mess" in an interview with The Associated Press.
"It's a unilateral decision that the studio took. They didn't even tell the people involved," Nolan said. "You have these great filmmakers who worked with passion and diligence for years on projects that are intended to be feature films with fantastic movie stars. And they've all now been told that they're a loss-leader for a fledgling streaming service."
Executives for Warner Bros. have maintained that the studio will return to releasing movies exclusively in theaters next year.
Federal judge orders Google to open its Android app store to competition
A federal judge on Monday ordered Google to tear down the digital walls shielding its Android app store from competition as a punishment for maintaining an illegal monopoly that helped expand the company's internet empire.
The injunction issued by U.S. District Judge James Donato will require Google to make several changes that the Mountain View, California, company had been resisting, including a provision that will require its Play Store for Android apps to distribute rival third-party app stores so consumers can download them to their phones if they so desire.
The judge's order will also make the millions of Android apps in the Play Store library accessible to rivals, allowing them to offer up a competitive selection.
Donato is giving Google until November to make the revisions dictated in his order. The company had insisted it would take 12 to 16 months to design the safeguards needed to reduce the chances of potentially malicious software making its way into rival Android app stores and infecting millions of Samsung phones and other mobile devices running on its free Android software.
The court-mandated overhaul is meant to prevent Google from walling off competition in the Android app market as part of an effort to protect a commission system that has been a boon for one of the world's most prosperous companies and helped elevate the market value of its corporate parent Alphabet Inc. to $2 trillion.
Google said in a blog post that it will ask the court to pause the pending changes, and will appeal the court's decision.
Donato also ruled that, for a period three years ending Nov. 1, 2027, Google won't be able to share revenue from its Play Store with anyone who distributes Android apps or is considering launching an... Read More