{"id":494441,"date":"2026-06-11T14:57:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T14:57:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/494441\/"},"modified":"2026-06-11T14:57:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T14:57:09","slug":"christopher-nolan-doesnt-have-a-cell-phone-but-you-need-one-to-order-in-his-theater","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/494441\/","title":{"rendered":"Christopher Nolan Doesn\u2019t Have a Cell Phone, But You Need One to Order in His Theater"},"content":{"rendered":"

Christopher Nolan is known for two things<\/a>: Making incredible movies<\/a> and not having a cell phone. The Oscar-winning director is famously offline and doesn\u2019t personally use email or a phone to keep track of his many hugely successful filmmaking endeavors<\/a>. Which is why it\u2019s kind of funny that a theater where you specifically have to use a phone<\/a> to order now carries his name.<\/p>\n

This week, Alamo Drafthouse<\/a> announced that it was renaming its flagship San Francisco New Mission location \u201cThe Christopher Nolan Cinema.\u201d It\u2019s an honor that, of course, Nolan was flattered by. \u201cSan Francisco\u2019s New Mission is a beautiful, historic, iconic cinema with more than a century of rich history,\u201d Nolan said in a press release. \u201cTo be recognized in this way by Alamo Drafthouse, and with this particular theater which continues the great tradition of showing films on 70mm film, is an incredible honor.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an honor to be sure, but one that feels a little off. That\u2019s because after years of being well known for not just their incredible theatrical experiences, repertory screenings<\/a>, in-theater food services, and a no-tolerance phone policy, Drafthouse drastically changed a few of those in recent months<\/a>. In the past, if you wanted to order food at your seat in the theater, there was a little piece of paper you could fill out that was decidedly less distracting to the people around you. Now, though, you have to scan a QR code<\/a> with your phone to access the menu to place orders. Phone usage at the Drafthouse used to be frowned upon. Now it\u2019s necessary. Remember this?<\/p>\n

To us, that was a way to really champion cinema. Now, the company is doing that in other ways. \u201cBy dedicating New Mission in Mr. Nolan\u2019s name, we\u2019re celebrating and thanking a filmmaker whose work has consistently championed cinema not merely as entertainment, but as a cultural inheritance worth protecting,\u201d Michael Kustermann, Alamo Drafthouse CEO, said in the press release. \u201cThe same auditorium that ran silent movies in 1916 now has both 70mm celluloid projection sitting beside Barco\u2019s state-of-the-art laser projector. That trajectory feels right for the Christopher Nolan Cinema.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kustermann is correct. It feels right for a top-notch theater to have Nolan\u2019s name on it. But, maybe because Nolan isn\u2019t online that much and doesn\u2019t have a phone himself, he\u2019s unaware that if he wants a refill on his Diet Coke in the middle of his 70mm film screening of The Odyssey, he won\u2019t be able to get that.<\/p>\n

The policy change was recently spotlighted by iconic actor and longtime Drafthouse fan Elijah Wood. \u201cFor the first time yesterday, I experienced the new Alamo Drafthouse QR code ordering system and I can tell you it\u2019s truly awful,\u201d Wood wrote on X earlier this month<\/a>. \u201cRather than making ordering food and drink more efficient, it actually adds steps to the process AND if you want to order additional items during the film you HAVE to open your phone. No, your cute reference to that irony in your How To Alamo video doesn\u2019t negate how ridiculous this is. Please don\u2019t cut corners with your staff and revert back to physical menus and order cards.\u201d<\/p>\n

I have yet to personally experience this myself, but many, many friends and acquaintances have and echo Wood\u2019s assessment. So while Drafthouse has done something very nice here in honoring an incredible filmmaker, we think it probably has more important odysseys ahead of it.<\/p>\n

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel<\/a>, Star Wars<\/a>, and Star Trek<\/a> releases, what\u2019s next for the DC Universe on film and TV<\/a>, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Christopher Nolan is known for two things: Making incredible movies and not having a cell phone. The Oscar-winning…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":494442,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[144945,321,50678,93,61,60],"class_list":["post-494441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-alamo-drafthouse","tag-celebrities","tag-christopher-nolan","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=494441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494441\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/494442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=494441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=494441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=494441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}