Christopher Nolan reportedly has plans to shoot WWII film in France

By Stephanie Topacio Long December 28, 2015

Christopher Nolan with a film camera. — HellaCinema/Wikimedia Commons

Keeping “top secret” projects under wraps isn’t easy. In spite of going incognito while scouting locations in France, details about an upcoming film from acclaimed director Christopher Nolan have been outed by French newspaper La Voix du Nord.

According to the report, Nolan and his brother and frequent co-writer, Jonathan Nolan, recently visited Dunkirk, a coastal city in Northern France. After scouting for locations, the director is said to have ultimately requested a shooting permit. The city’s mayor, Patrice Vergriete, later revealed that a world-renowned director would be working on a production, set to film in the area in June 2016.

Of course, Nolan fits the description. His credits as a director include 2000’s Memento, The Dark Knight trilogy, 2010’s Inception, 2014’s Interstellar, and more. The latter grossed over $675.12 million worldwide, according to Box Office Mojo data.

Nolan and Warner Bros. currently have an untitled project scheduled to be released on July 21, 2017, so the timeline suggests that this would be the film. While no official plot details have been announced, La Voix du Nord reports that the plot will center on the evacuation of Dunkirk during Word War II. The challenging operation, which took place during May and June of 1940, enabled hundreds of thousands of Allied forces to escape France as German troops invaded the country.

The film sound interesting, especially for history buffs, but fans of The Dark Knight trilogy were likely hoping that Nolan’s upcoming project would be a sequel. There may, however, still be a glimmer of hope: The Dark Knight Rises did end with Batman and others in Europe, as the Huffington Post points out. If, by chance, the intel regarding a WWII drama isn’t correct, we could still hold out hope for another installment.

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