Oppenheimer Achieves Massive Box Office Milestone

Oppenheimer has hit another box office milestone with $900 million at the global box office. That lofty number took Universal past $4 billion worldwide in 2023. Christopher Nolan’s biopic just continues to climb as the fall season sets in. Current estimates indicate that Oppenheimer will hit $912 million as the weekend ends. The success for the latest Nolan picture doesn’t just stem from the United States either. International box office represents $586 million of the current total. While things only sit at about $903 million right now, there’s now belief that somehow Oppenheimer might actually reach the vaunted $1 billion movie distinction that has eluded so many different projects this year. 

Christopher Nolan already has his biggest international performing movie of all time with Oppenheimer. On the end of the year ladder, the biopic only sits behind Barbie and The Super Mario Bros. Movie. Fascinating stuff when you consider that Oppenheimer is a three-hour R-rated historical drama paired with two movies that aim toward families. But, the hype from the multi-week Barbenheimer phenomenon looks to have been a real thing. IT’s now a legitimate question of whether Nolan’s latest can catch his work with Batman. The Dark Knight Rises and The Dark Knight are his two biggest films and it’s not inconceivable that Oppenheimer could catch one of them.

Visual Effects’ Role In Oppenheimer

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, VFX supervisor Andrew Jackson had to tell overzealous Christopher Nolan fans to slow their roll. Online, a lot of commenters proudly stated that Oppenheimer had no visual effects. There’s just one problem with that assertion though, it’s not true. So Jackson had to explain how they brought the horrors of the atomic age to life with this project.

“Some people have picked that up and taken it to mean that there are no visual effects, which is clearly not true,” Jackson explained. “Visual effects can encompass a whole lot of things.” He explains that includes computer-generated imagery and “in-camera” special effects created on set. 

He would add of the movie’s central Trinity Test scene, “[Nolan] didn’t want use any CG simulations of a nuclear explosion. He wanted to be in that sort of language of the era of the film … using practical filmed elements to tell that story.” He added of the practical explosions on set, “They used four 44 gallon drums of fuel and then some high explosives under that, which sets the fuel alight and launches it into the air.”  

What Happens In Oppenheimer?

Universal has a fresh synopsis for Oppenheimer: “Written and directed by Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer is an IMAX®-shot epic thriller that thrusts audiences into the pulse-pounding paradox of the enigmatic man who must risk destroying the world in order to save it. The film is based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning book American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and the late Martin J. Sherwin. The film is produced by Emma Thomas, Atlas Entertainment’s Charles Roven and Christopher Nolan. Oppenheimer is filmed in a combination of IMAX® 65mm and 65mm large-format film photography including, for the first time ever, sections in IMAX® black and white analogue photography.”

Do you think Oppenheimer will get to $1 billion? Let us know in the comments down below!