The Christopher Nolan movies that “mercilessly pillaged from the James Bond films”
Everybody knows Christopher Nolan has a deep-seated love of the James Bond franchise, and the vast majority would love to see him direct one of them eventually. Unfortunately, he’s fully aware of that burning desire, but he doesn’t seem all that keen on realising his own ambitions.
For purely artistic reasons, it’s easy to see why. With the exception of the Dark Knight trilogy – which was still painted in his own image – Nolan has never been one for playing in somebody else’s sandbox. The Prestige may have been a literary adaptation, and Oppenheimer was derived from a published biography, but it’s difficult to imagine him picking up an established IP at this point in his career.
After all, Nolan has the status to make whatever he wants however, he wants to make it for as much money as he needs it to cost, and all of Hollywood’s major studios will be falling over themselves to secure his next project. As sad it is to say, 007 may never be in his future.
Still, each time the long-running spy saga is in need of a new director, he immediately shoots to the forefront of the conversation. It must be getting pretty tiring from his point of view, but at least Nolan has the wherewithal to graciously reiterate his love of Bond every time he gets asked about potentially picking up the reins while simultaneously clarifying that it’s not currently on his radar.
That being said, he has been able to indulge his Bondian roots in a variety of different ways, with the snow-capped third act action sequence in Inception ticking many of the boxes associated with cinema’s most iconic secret agent. Villain with an impenetrable lair? Check. Gadgets galore? Check. Lashings of subterfuge? Check. It’s Bond in everything but name, but that wasn’t the source of his most ruthless appropriation.
Instead, the Academy Award winner cited The Dark Knight as the height of his subtle picking and choosing of 007-esque elements, with Morgan Freeman’s Lucius Fox being singled out as being to Christian Bale’s Bruce Wayne what the various iterations of the tech-savvy staple Q have been to Bond.
Refusing to make any bones about it, Nolan conceded to Variety how “we mercilessly pillaged from the James Bond films for certain aspects” of the superhero sequel, which extended far beyond the nocturnal vigilante moonlighting as a billionaire playboy and looking awfully dapper in a tux while doing so.
On the other hand, Nolan would also admit that if he made his truest version of a Bond film, “Inception is far more guilty of that than The Dark Knight,” not that there were cries of plagiarism being lobbed from all corners during the spectacular finale. The acclaimed writer, director, and producer has spent the better part of 20 years keeping MI6’s finest at a deliberate arm’s length, but it hasn’t prevented him from paying tribute in his own way.
