Christopher Nolan has told Empire Magazine that he feels really good about the movie business after making what the director says is “$1 billion dollars” from his new movie, Oppenheimer, a three-hour biographical film that traces some of the more substantial parts of the titular American theoretical physicist’s life, including his work on the atomic bomb at Los Alamos.
Here’s what Empire heard from Nolan, 53, who described the success of Oppenheimer as being “crazy”:
“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,” Nolan went on to say. “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.”
According to numbers from Box Office Mojo, Oppenheimer has, more specifically, made a total of $951,996,130 at the box office, with $625,934,000 and $326,062,130 coming from the domestic and international markets, respectively.
“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,” reads a description of the film from Universal Pictures.
The 4K UHD Blu-ray of Oppenheimer appears to be back in stock at the usual retailers, including Best Buy, where it’s listed for $32.99.
Nolan’s future projects include a remake of his 2002 film, Memento, according to his IMDb page.