Every 2020 Movie That Could Make A Billion Dollars

Christopher Nolan is one of the few filmmakers working today who can sell a movie largely off the back of his own name. "Tarantino" "Spielberg" "Cameron" "Nolan" - slap one of those guys on a poster, and audience interest will be piqued.

But does that translate into box-office success? For Nolan, the answer is yes. His last three films that didn't feature a man dressed like a bat (Inception, Interstellar, Dunkirk) grossed a minimum of $500 million globally, even in the face of some stiff competition. Half a billion dollars for an original movie is an insane figure, but still, it isn't a billion - so can Tenet be the one that makes it?

The film is supposedly an action-thriller with sci-fi elements, and is set for July, where Nolan movies like The Dark Knight, Inception and Dunkirk made big money. Nobody expected a World War II movie to make $500 million, but strong word of mouth gave Dunkirk some incredible legs, and it just kept on making cash week after week.

Assuming Tenet can generate similar buzz - which it surely will, being a mysterious Nolan picture - the fact that it appears to be of a more "mainstream" genre than Dunkirk could give it even better longevity and even higher grosses.

Plus, it sounds similar to Inception purely in terms of its genre. Inception grossed $830 million when it released in 2010, and interestingly, if you adjust for inflation, it would be right on the cusp of a billion dollars in 2019. True, the market is a lot different today, but we haven't had an original, live-action cultural sensation in years, and if anything can scratch that itch, it's going to be Tenet.