There was little precedent for Oppenheimer taking over the box office in the way that it did this summer. Along with Barbie, it dominated blockbuster season – but given its three-hour runtime, its sprawling cast of historical characters, and its daunting, doomy story about J. Robert Oppenheimer creating the atomic bomb, there was no guarantee that Christopher Nolan’s latest would reach such a huge audience. But that’s the thing – a Christopher Nolan movie is an event, and Oppenheimer quickly became a must-see, banking over $951 million worldwide to date. For a lengthy drama about the terror of possible nuclear apocalypse, that’s an astonishing haul.
Speaking to Empire at the end of a banner year, Christopher Nolan was buoyant about what the cinematic success of Oppenheimer – as well as other huge hits this year – means for movies in general. “I’ve just made a three-hour film about Robert Oppenheimer which is R-rated and half in black-and-white – and it made a billion dollars. Of course I think films are doing great,” he laughs in a major new interview for Empire’s Review Of The Year 2023. “The crazy thing is that it’s literally the most successful film I’ve ever made. I’ve been doing this for 20 years and in the United Kingdom it’s my highest-grossing film. So I feel great about the state of the movie business, based on my own experience. But also based on seeing other movies break out, seeing audiences come back.”
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Right from opening weekend, Nolan was able to see that audiences were being swept up in his latest work – since he snuck into a few public screenings. “Emma [Thomas, Nolan’s producer and wife] and I went into the back of Lincoln Square, which has a giant IMAX screen where you can still play 70mm film. And there were two screens – one five-perf 70mm, one 15-perf – and we went from one to the other. When we walked into the back of the IMAX screen, it was just as the Trinity test was coming to its conclusion. It was absolutely packed; every seat was filled,” he recalls. “To be in the back of that theatre in that moment of silence, before the sound washes over the audience… you could hear a pin drop. It was a really remarkable experience. Quite overwhelming, really.”
Through the course of the summer, Oppenheimer continued to draw huge crowds, particularly in IMAX. And coupled with the success of something like Barbie, it spoke to a shift in cinemagoing. “The audience’s desire to be surprised, to see something new, to see something they did not know they wanted, that’s always been the most powerful force in theatrical film,” reflects Nolan. “So it was wonderful to see that this year.” Whatever happens this awards season, Nolan – and Oppenheimer – is already a winner.
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Read Empire’s full Review Of The Year interview with Christopher Nolan – reflecting on the incredible success of Oppenheimer, the film’s most jaw-dropping sequences, and the state of cinema in 2023 – in the Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes issue, on sale Thursday 21 December. Pre-order a copy online here. Oppenheimer is out now on 4K Ultra-HD, Blu-ray, DVD and digital.