Christopher Nolan is a highly renowned filmmaker who has had a flourishing partnership with Warner Bros spanning many years. However, when the studio decided to premier Tenet and other major 2021 pictures on HBO Max streaming the same day as it hit theatres, that partnership became strained.
Netflix is ready to fill the void.
The choice to show off the films on HBO Max was made due to the various restrictions still in place due to the COVID-19 pandemic, limiting the access that audiences have to theatres. In the theater-versus-streaming debate that has gotten more and more heated among filmmakers, Nolan is squarely in team theatre, and he openly criticized the move, later stating that he was unlikely to work with WB again.
While the longevity of this falling out is in question, with no official confirmation about the working relationship between WB and Nolan being on ice, Netflix is keen to swoop in and make friends with the filmmaker. An odd idea, to say the least, since the entire situation arose out of Nolan's support of theatrical experiences as opposed to streaming.