Dec. 19 (UPI) -- Warner Bros. Pictures is giving a glimpse of Christopher Nolan's new film Tenet.
The studio released a first trailer Thursday for the movie starring John David Washington, Robert Pattinson and Elizabeth Debicki.
Washington's character is shown scaling a building and waking up in the "afterlife." The characters all face a mysterious threat.
"To do what I do, I need some idea of the threat we face," Washington's character says.
"As I understand it, we're trying to prevent World War III," Clémence Poésy's character responds.
"Nuclear holocaust?" Washington's character suggests.
"No. Something worse," Poésy replies.
Washington's character is simply given the word "Tenet."
"It'll open the right doors. Some of the wrong ones, too," Martin Donovan's character says.
Tenet is described as an international espionage thriller. The film is Nolan's first directorial release since the 2017 movie Dunkirk.
Nolan said in an interview with Entertainment Weekly published Wednesday that Tenet is his "most ambitious film" thus far.
"We're jumping off from the point of view of an espionage film, but we're going to a number of places," the director said. "We're crossing a few different genres in a hopefully exciting and fresh way."
"[Producer] Emma [Thomas] and I have put together a lot of large-scale productions, but this is certainly the biggest in terms of international reach," he added. "We shot in seven countries, all over the place, with a massive cast and huge set pieces."
Nolan has directed such films as The Dark Knight, Inception and Interstellar. Washington is a former football player who has since starred in BlacKkKlansman and the HBO series Ballers.
Tenet opens in theaters July 17.
