The tenets of speculation can often change dramatically
Chance: 1%
The Protagonist (yes that's his actual name, there are reasons for that) is the, er, main character of the 2020 movie Tenet. An FBI agent who finds himself thrust into a twilight world of espionage, he becomes a spy for the ultrasecret organization Tenet and fights a threat which just might be the future itself.
Christopher Nolan is one of the greatest living filmmakers, I think that's not a controversial statement to make. His name itself is a brand, to the point where he's allowed to make mega-budget, hyper personal and stylized blockbusters with no previous IPs. And lo and behold, all but two of his movies were for Warner Bros. Nolan made the studio his home and they in return reaped the rewards (both box office, critical acclaim, and the reputation as a filmmaker's studio that afforded them). It makes sense, then, that they'd want to promote that through one of his movies in MultiVersus. Now, the obvious choice would be Inception, Nolan's signature movie, but I'm of the mind that Tenet's Protagonist, with his ability to invert the entropy of objects and even himself, translates better to a fighting game than Inception's Cobb, who's just a normal thief in an abnormal world. I believe Nolan himself would agree, as in interviews he gave before his appearance at The Game Awards (!) he expressed openness to the idea of a videogame based on one of his movies and said Tenet probably fits the genre best.
...too bad that Nolan and WB had a very, very public falling out, huh? Yeah, last year, Warner Bros' plan to release every movie day and date on HBO Max (which was moronic without hindsight, and turned out to be catastrophic for most movies involved) irked Nolan, famous defender of the theatrical experience, to the point where he went out on an interview calling out the heads at WB and calling HBO Max "the worst streaming service" - and that plan didn't even affect his movies! Fast-forward a few months, and his follow-up to Tenet, Oppenheimer, is full-steam ahead at Universal. Given the treatment Uni is giving to that movie (landing it a summer release date, reportedly a 100+ day theatrical window, casting every actor under the sun in it) it's likely that Chris will be pleased and choose to make Uni his new home. Universal! Home of the Minions and Christopher Nolan. What a timeline we're living in eh?
Now for the record, while Nolan produces all his movies under his Syncopy banner, I'm pretty sure it's not a Legendary/Village situation and WB outright owns the IP, so they could go without him. And it's not like he completely cut ties, he's still producing Westworld, an HBO show created by his brother and sister-in-law. Buuut at the end of the day, I doubt they'd want to flaunt Nolan when they don't have Nolan anymore, and without that factor, it's not like his movies lend themselves to a platform fighter crossover by themselves. WB probably prefers to use those resources to prop up my boy Denis Villeneuve, who they're clearly grooming to be their next Nolan ("listen Denis, give us a Dune trilogy and then you can make anything you want for the rest of your life, please").
Now that I think about it, they could just pay Christian Bale a lot of money and make a TDK skin for Batman. That's your Nolan rep.
Want: 100%
Get ready for me gushing about Tenet and Nolan. Also spoilers.
I am a big fan. You could probably tell by the fact that this was the third character I thought to nominate. Anyway, with Tenet, we got a badass American Bond with the smooth as ice Protagonist, in a paranoid, everything-is-need-to-know spy thriller in the first half, only for Nolan to literally flip it around and send the Protagonist spinning backwards in time and through the first half of the movie (freaking car chases in reverse! Palindromic fight scenes! Wtf Nolan) only to end in a finale centering on three characters, one of which is in a different location and another going backwards in time, and still have it all make sense. In terms of technique, bravo, just conceiving it must have taken years and every element - writing, editing, shooting, stunts, effects - is in top-notch form. But I also really took to the story and themes, from the eco-friendly goals of the faceless villains (how can the motives of a group that has no characters show up make sense?), to Neil's personification of the belief that a deterministic universe is not one without free will, to the meta narrative regarding the Protagonist's lack of agency, both because he's an agent for a larger organization, because he's in a universe where the future is unknown but set, and because he's a character in a linear medium, film; leading up to the point where his arc concludes with a reaffirmation of his lost agency, ceasing to be a protagonist and becoming The protagonist of his story. There are many ways to read the movie and, well, I like that. Plus it has a real plane exploding and a cool opera sequence done in one take and a high-speed heist, I'm not made of stone.
It has been a hectic couple of days and so my write-up is kind of rambly, it might not make sense to everyone (kinda like Tenet!). But bottom line, is Tenet the best Nolan movie? Nah. But it's hella good and you should watch it and also Protagonist for MultiVersus because he has the most obvious reflector ever c'mon guys.
Oh yeah Top Cat!
Chance: 10%
I'm not actually sure how big (or not big at all) Top Cat is in the US or other parts of the world. What I can tell you is that Top Cat is the **** in Latin America. Like, bigger than several Looney Tunes. I haven't yet met a person over the age of 35 who can't do an imitation of Top Cat or one of his gang. There was a CGI animated movie, we freaking made it, they even made a prequel, both were theatrical releases here and were hits.
With that in mind, I can't really have an objective viewpoint regarding Top Cat in general aside from the knowledge that he's not as big elsewhere. Except the UK because Wikipedia notes him being big there. So my overall summation is that Top Cat will probably make it in eventually because there is a huge audience for him, but he probably won't be a priority.
Want : 75%
Sure, I like gang cat. He's got swagger.
Noms go to Peacemaker
