The Next Christopher Nolan Movie and Why he Chose to Crash a Real 747

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

Christopher Nolan is one of those rare filmmakers who pretty much gets to do whatever he wants regardless of money or materials, and so if for the next Christopher Nolan movie the filmmaker wants to crash a real 747 into a hanger, well then, he gets to crash a real 747 into a hanger. A new trailer for TENET dropped last week and gave us a bigger look into Nolan's latest mind-f**k of a movie, which seems to be dealing with time travel, sorry, time inversion, and the threat of World War III.

One of the massive set-pieces featured in the TENET trailer involved a 747 crashing into a hanger, and as this is Christopher Nolan we're talking about, it's a real 747 crashing into a real hanger. For any other director, the sequence would undoubtedly involve CGI, perhaps with a little practical effects and miniature work, but Nolan gets to play with the big toys. While speaking with Total Film, Nolan explained why is was actually more practical to buy a real plane and crash it than use the typical movie magic.

I planned to do it using miniatures and set-piece builds and a combination of visual effects and all the rest. We started to run the numbers… It became apparent that it would actually be more efficient to buy a real plane of the real size, and perform this sequence for real in camera, rather than build miniatures or go the CG route.

"It’s a strange thing to talk about – a kind of impulse buying, I suppose," Nolan said with a laugh. "But we kind of did, and it worked very well, with Scott Fisher, our special-effects supervisor, and Nathan Crowley, the production designer, figuring out how to pull off this big sequence in camera. It was a very exciting thing to be a part of." One person who who was also rather thrilled by the sequence was Robert Pattinson, who stars in the film alongside John David Washington. "You wouldn’t have thought there was any reality where you would be doing a scene where they just have an actual 747 to blow up! It’s so bold to the point of ridiculousness," Pattinson said. "I remember, as we were shooting it, I was thinking, ‘How many more times is this even going to be happening in a film at all?'" While the trailer merely said that TENET would be coming to theaters, the film is still slated for a July 17, 2020 release.