Christopher Nolan will make a horror movie on one condition

Christopher Nolan has dabbled in many different genres, and during a recent Q&A, the writer-director revealed that he’d like to try horror – on one condition.

Christopher Nolan kicked off his career via a trio of thrillers with ever-increasing budgets, debuting with Following, following that with the mind-bending Momento, then remaking Insomnia with stars Al Pacino and Robin Williams.

The Dark Knight trilogy followed, enabling him to scratch a superhero itch, before Nolan focused on sci-fi through big-budget blockbusters Inception, Interstellar, and Tenet.

His most recent effort – Oppenheimer – is a combination of biopic and account of the atomic bomb’s creation, while the film also features moments of genuine horror. And turns out, that’s a genre the writer-director would like to explore.

Christopher Nolan will make a horror movie on one condition

During a Q&A at the BFI last night – as reported by Variety – Nolan said: “Oppenheimer has elements of horror in it definitely, as I think is appropriate to the subject matter. I think horror films are very interesting because they depend on very cinematic devices, it really is about a visceral response to things and so, at some point, I’d love to make a horror film.”

That said, Nolan isn’t ready for a scary movie just yet, as he explained: “I think a really good horror film requires a really exceptional idea. And those are few and far between. So I haven’t found a story that lends itself to that.

“But I think it’s a very interesting genre from a cinematic point of view. It’s also one of the few genres where the studios make a lot of these films, and they are films that have a lot of bleakness, a lot of abstraction. They have a lot of the qualities that Hollywood is generally very resistant to putting in films, but that’s a genre where it’s allowable.”