Christopher Nolan Describes One Of His Sci-Fi Movies As His Take On James Bond

When it comes to dream directors for future "James Bond" movies, one name that's been mentioned more than most is Christopher Nolan. Understandable, really. The Oscar-winning filmmaker is widely considered one of the greatest of our time, giving us the likes of "The Odyssey," "The Dark Knight Trilogy," and even his overlooked, twist-riddled magic movie "The Prestige." However, it's his mind-heist movie from 2010 that provides the clearest example that he'd be a brilliant fit for 007, mainly because he's confessed to it being the closest we'd ever get to seeing it become a reality.

Still sitting as the most popular sci-fi movie on IMDb, "Inception" cinematically stitched the likes of Bond with "The Matrix" to bring a groundbreaking movie with an all-star cast. Leonardo DiCaprio leads a dream team set on invading Cillian Murphy's mind to plant an idea that could finally reunite our hero with his children. With its globe-trotting antics and super-sleek characters, it's clear that Bond played a major role in the inception of "Inception," a point Nolan didn't deny.

Speaking to Empire about "Inception" back in 2010, Nolan assured that "this is absolutely my Bond film. I've been plundering ruthlessly from the Bond movies in everything I've done, forever. They're a huge influence on me."

One Bond film in particular influenced Nolan to create DiCaprio's character, Cobb. Strip the dream-diving, rotating hallways, and folding French city streets, and "Inception," above all, is built on a doomed love story between Cobb and his late wife, Mal (Marion Cotillard). This heartbreaking portion of the movie lines up with the 1969 movie "On Her Majesty's Secret Service," starring one-time Bond, George Lazenby. Additionally, the final big set piece of "Inception" at a snow-covered mountain base also pulls straight from this bittersweet Bond movie, which Nolan has had a huge soft spot for.

In that 2010 interview, Nolan explained: "I think 'Her Majesty's Secret Service' would be my favorite Bond. It's a hell of a movie; it holds up very well. What I liked about it that we've tried to emulate in this film is there's a tremendous balance of action, scale, and romanticism and tragedy and emotion. Of all the Bond films, it's by far the most emotional. There's a love story, and Inception is kind of a love story as well as anything else."

So, with such admiration from MI6's most well-known secret agent, why hasn't Bond been given orders from Nolan yet? More importantly, could we ever see a Nolan-directed Bond movie?

After Daniel Craig gave up the Aston Martin and martinis allowing a new star to take on the Bond character, a vacancy was also left open for who was going to call the shots behind the camera. That job went to Denis Villeneuve, who will be sending 007 out on a new mission after he's done with the highly anticipated trilogy, "Dune: Messiah." But while Nolan might not have gotten the call this time around, he still acknowledges just how much of a dream job it would be, and that the franchise has made a huge impact on his career.

On the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Nolan said: "The influence of those movies on my filmography is embarrassingly apparent... It would be an amazing privilege to do one... It has to be the right moment in your creative life where you can express what you want to express and really burrow into something within the appropriate constraints because you would never want to take on something like that and, sort of, do it wrong."