When thinking about the 2016 top directors, Christopher Nolan is sure to be at the top of the list. Well, according to The Hollywood Reporter, Nolan is the top of the list – by leaps and bounds compared to other directors. The Dark Knight director is officially the highest-paid director of the year.
Nolan may have started his directing career off small with thriller movies, like The Prestige, but after he hit is big with his Dark Knight trilogy, it was as if everything he touched turned to gold. This streak of high-quality films – even those outside the Batman universe – is what has lead Nolan to earning the big bucks for his films.
Videos by PopCulture.com
According to The Hollywood Reporter, which examined how directors are paid today versus previous decades, many directors are having to settle for less money upfront per film. Previously, directors would go into deals with a certain salary in mind for the film. This was determined based on previous salaries and film successes.
Today, directors are getting paid less and less upfront for their films. Instead, they make deals to make up the difference in salary by negotiating a cut of the overall money brought in by the film. For some, especially those who are working on movies that are sure to be hits, this is a great way to get paid, but for those who are working with limited release films, it might not pay off.
Nolan, however, doesn’t quite have to worry about that right now. For his upcoming film, Dunkirk, he is getting paid up to $20 million upfront on top of 20 percent of the gross brought in from the film. The last director to get a deal like that was Peter Jackson – fresh off of the Lord of the Rings trilogy – for his film King Kong.
Why is Nolan getting so much more? Because studios know that he is going to produce quality work. Aside from his Batman films, movies like Inception and Interstellar were still hits in the theaters. This is a good sign for the upcoming Dunkirk – not to mention the fact that the film is already getting slated for a 2017 Oscar.
Now, if Dunkirk isn’t quite the great movie everyone is expecting, then perhaps we will be talking about a different director next year. Until then, Nolan is definitely number one.
[H/T Screen Rant]
