How Did Inception Get The Greenlight?

"Christopher Nolan is a mad man and a genius."

Yesterday, I was inspired. I watched Inception in IMAX. I watched this film accomplish something nearly impossible nowadays in Hollywood. It was original, refreshing, and had a huge studio budget behind it.

This perfect storm could only happen with a handful of directors in Tinseltown, and Christopher Nolan finds himself in that select few -- and for good reason. Nolan was born to be a film maker.

Don't get me wrong, Inception comes with it's flaws. At a run time of 2 1/2 hours it begins to drag and become redundant in act two, but then picks back up for a great ending. Maybe Nolan did that on purpose, to try and lull the audience to sleep for a moment, just to make us second guess if we were dreaming or not. If Inception was edited down to just under two hours, it would have been exponentially better. Maybe Nolan's unbridled control was a reason that not enough was left on the cutting room floor. Some of the characters didn't develop well, and were a bit flat. Also, this film felt like a dream you'd seen before. Stylistically it seemed bit like The Dark Knight 2.0 with the heavy score bombarding the beautiful and gritty imagery... Not to mention some of the marketing. But amidst the flaws there is much to love about this film.

As I sat in the theater watching this mind feast, I realized this movie should have never been green lit. That's right, you heard me. It should have never seen the light of day. I was watching a film that was extremely high concept, high budget and high expectations, with very little marketability. It doesn't fit in anywhere.

Way too much risk for a studio project. Do you blame them? Feature Films are business first, and billions of dollars have been invested into figuring out what will sell and what won't. The big budget blockbuster is defined as a success or failure solely by it's revenue stream and profit margin.

Way too much money for an indie. Even if an indie could raise that kind of upfront cash, as soon as you bring in big budgets, you lose a lot of the creative control. You lose a lot of the risk taking flexibility. You have to try and fit a certain proven mold, because making your investors money back becomes the number one priority.

So how did this get greenlit? The bankability of Nolan carried this film right into the theaters. Well, that and a little help from an A-list cast. Watch the trailers and TV spots for this film. None of us knew what it was about. The marketing hinged on "From the Director of The Dark Knight", "Leonardo DiCaprio" something about a maze, and this is going to be a visual mind twist. The only one that came close to trying to explain the plot elements was this one:
Inception Meet The Characters Trailer

Can you imagine the pitch meetings for this project from 99.9% of the other writer/directors in Hollywood? Any other person would have been laughed out of the room or pointed towards the SyFy channel offices. "You want how much for a movie nobody will get?" Or could you imagine what the majority of blockbuster producers would have done to this film if left to their own devices with a director of lesser clout? "You know, we really need a hit single about 'dreams' or 'waking up' to be played in that last scene."

As I sat in the theater churning through the twists, turns and revelations, I realized Christopher Nolan is a mad man and a genius. So many layers. So many plot strings to coordinate. So much creativity. I'm not sure what it takes for a person to dive that deep into a concept and still piece together an entertaining film, but that is what makes this movie brilliant. This film should have never made it past the suits, but let's rejoice that it did.