Tenet: John David Washington Hopes to Reunite with Christopher Nolan For Sequel

Christopher Nolan’s Tenet is a complex film, one that offers up a unique take on time travel in a story that pushes the boundaries of logic itself at times with its concept of inversion, multiple time streams, and the idea of the future being at war with the past. Like many of Nolan’s films, it ends in a place that both wraps up the story being told over its runtime but leaves audiences with more questions than answers — a perfect setup, in a sense, for a sequel and Tenet star John David Washington is hopeful there will be one.

In an interview with Nerd Reactor, Washington was asked if he thought Tenet might get a sequel in which his character, The Protagonist, might get to go further back in time. Washington said he hoped so — but did note that it was ultimately up to Nolan.

“I hope so. I mean, it’s up to Chris, but I would love to do this again because there’s so many ways to go,” Washington said. “It’s a movie that you need to see multiple times and get the discussion going. I think there’s a whole bunch of fan theories out there already, I think it’s worth it. I think we should do it again; I hope so.”

Washington isn’t wrong about there being plenty of fan theories. One very popular one is that Neil (Robert Pattinson) is actually the adult version of Kat’s (Elizabeth Debicki) son Max — a truly interesting theory given that much of Kat’s arc in Tenet is devoted to saving Max from his villainous father, Russian oligarch Sator (Kenneth Branagh). It’s that particular fan theory that Washington told Indiewire is one that he particularly likes.

“I saw that the other day — I like that!” Washington said. “I dont know if it’s true or not, you gotta ask Chris, but if there’s another [movie] and they introduce that, that would be a lot of fun. We’ll see what happens.”

Of course, a sequel for Tenet is something that may depend on the performance of the film itself. The COVID-19 pandemic has had a major impact on the film’s box office. With many theaters across the country still closed and those that are open operating at reduced capacity, Tenet is currently sitting at around $280 million at the global box office, $41 million of it domestic. Time will tell if the film’s box office will be enough for a sequel to even be a consideration for Warner Bros. even if Nolan were to be on board.

Tenet is in theaters now.