Is Christopher Nolan’s new project Inception 2?

The first teaser trailer for Tenet puts the focus on John David Washington’s character, pointing to him as the main lead, which, as Nolan’s first lead of color, is another step away from the brooding white male heroes of his previous films. The trailer even states “Time has come for a new protagonist” and “Time has come for a new kind of mission” — both serving as meta-commentary on Nolan’s career and perhaps, if the film is an Inception follow-up, as meta-commentary on the stories and realities of that world. 

There’s certainly an overwhelming chance that Tenet has nothing to do directly with the Inception universe. But if it does, Tenet focusing on an entirely separate character sounds like a move Nolan would make. The director doesn’t seem like one who would make a direct sequel, but rather seems like one who would use loose threads. In that scenario, could Washington’s character have his own journey — a new kind of mission — in a world of advanced technology, paralleled next to or intertwined with the supporting journey of the Inception kids? 

In another area where Nolan could shift, could a potential follow-up focus on a different area of Inception’s world, rather than on dream tech? In Inception, dream tech was developed for military purposes, so could the military have developed a new kind of dangerous tech in the decades after Inception’s events? (The teaser trailer features a swat team, or some kind of special operative unit — and there have been rumors of a massive stunt involving a tank.) 

Could that future world have even developed technology that can bend time, allowing espionage missions to span across decades in the past? In the teaser, Washington moves in an odd manner, almost as though his character is moving in reverse or in some sort of loop. 

Could the fight for energy dominance alluded to in Inception have resulted in worldwide chaos? Like how the ending of The Dark Knight led to the chaos of The Dark Knight Rises, could the idea that Cobb and team planted in the mind of Robert Fischer (Cillian Murphy), to break up his father’s company, have backfired and now there are massive consequences?

Inception ended with Cobb reuniting with his son and daughter, but it also ended on the ambiguity of a spinning top, cutting to black before the audience could see if it fell or not. It’s unlikely that Nolan — who opts not to explain his endings (too extensively)— would directly undermine the way that ending plays in a potential sequel, so perhaps he would create a setup that allows him to work around it: Cobb is dead. 

It’s also, of course, quite likely that “Tenet” isn’t connected to “Inception” at all – – and some might argue that they’d prefer it not be, particularly with how brilliantly Nolan ended the Di Caprio starrer – spinning top and all.

“Tenet” hits theaters July 17, 2020.