Usually, news of a writer switching to a new talent agency is the Hollywood equivalent of a “Governor Appoints Committee to Study Problem†headline. Blah. This one, however, has larger ramifications: Vulture can exclusively report that late yesterday, William Morris Endeavor landed Jonathan Nolan, co-writer (with his director brother, Christopher) of The Dark Knight. And the move may be telegraphing a lot more.
Insiders are watching the younger Nolan’s move closely, because he’s been at work for the last two years on the screenplay to Interstellar, a sci-fi time-travel treatment originally penned by Caltech theoretical physicist Kip Thorne that Steven Spielberg is attached to direct. The intensity of WME’s fight to wrest Nolan from UTA (CAA was also competing to snag him)* signals that there’s as much interest in what Nolan currently is — the writer of the next Batman movie — as what Nolan may soon become: possibly the screenwriter of Spielberg’s next movie.
Spielberg has been tied to many projects, though he hasn’t confirmed which he’ll actually direct next. His films in development include a long-gestating biopic of President Abraham Lincoln, another biopic of George Gershwin, a Diablo Cody–penned version of The Taming of the Shrew, and an adaptation of novelist Rick Riordan’s The 39 Clues: The Maze of Bones. But WME is likely gambling on it being Interstellar.
*article clarified since original post