Why Can Christopher Nolan Get a $200 Million Budget for an Original Idea?

David Senra, reading the book's account, says Christopher Nolan can leave a studio with the money for an original film because obsession already carried Memento from a wall of rejections to the start of a near-vertical career.

Nolan had spent a long, anxious year trying to secure distribution. Every distributor in town turned the film down with the same variation: this is great, we love it, we want to work with you, but this is not for us. The film was personal. Memento was born on the back of obsession, and failing to get it made would have been almost inconceivable. Nolan made the movie because he had to. Once a filmmaker burrows in so deep that the film disappears, the only move left is to trust the first instinct: this is what I am making, and it is going to work. Memento earned two Oscar nominations, nearly two years to the day after that screening.

The ascent since then has been near vertical. In two decades Nolan went from micro-budget three-minute shorts to billion-dollar blockbusters. The films have earned over $5 billion at the box office. Studios treat him as close to a sure thing, one of the few filmmakers who can walk in with an original script idea and walk out with the $200 million to make it. He has written, or had a hand in writing, all 11 of his movies.