Casting announcements for a new Christopher Nolan movie are like the years in Smash Mouth's 'All Star' — they start coming and they don't stop coming. And having seemingly outdone himself with the stacked ensemble of his Best Picture winner Oppenheimer last year, the British filmmaker is already looking to increase the star power wattage with his latest effort. After already setting Tom Holland and Matt Damon to lead his as-yet-untitled new Universal movie in recent weeks, today Deadline are reporting that Nolan has just added two more heavyweights to his next movie's call sheet — Zendaya and Anne Hathaway.
Who exactly Zendaya and Hathaway will play in the movie — or Holland, or Damon for that matter — remains, like the film itself's plot, a mystery at this point. Not that that's stopped folk having a stab at guessing what Nolan's cooking up anyway, though. It's hardly been a month since we first learned the Inception filmmaker has a new project in the pipeline, and already the rumour mill has been hard at work, with whispers of potential ideas as varied as a 20s set period vampire piece, an airborne riff on 80s cult copter thriller Blue Thunder, and that long-mooted big-screen riff on The Prisoner all sending fans gaga online. But, per Deadline's reporting, sources are stating that any descriptions or loglines that have been circulating thus far are wrong, so take anything you read online with a pinch of salt (preferably set out in a circle, just in case the vampires rumour does end up being true!)
In terms of what we do know then, there's the fact that Nolan is directing from a self-written script, that he's producing alongside wife Emma Thomas, and that the film is supposedly not set in the present. We also know that this will mark both Zendaya and Tom Holland's first collaboration with Nolan, and that the duo's casting now tees up a quite remarkable double-header of releases for the acting couple in July 2026, with this movie set to hit IMAX screens on 17 July ahead of Spider-Man 4's slated release just a week later on 24 July. As for Damon and Hathaway, both can now safely stake a claim to being among Nolan's inner circle of collaborators, with both actors set to make their third appearance in a Nolan picture here (Damon previously starred in Interstellar and Oppenheimer, whilst Hathaway was previously Selina Kyle in The Dark Knight Rises and also appeared opposite Damon in Interstellar.)
What this mystery Nolan movie will turn out to be, only time will tell. But we imagine you'll be hearing more, and more, and more casting announcements for this one in the weeks and months to come. Long live cinema!