Oppenheimer, a high-budget film!
Barbie and Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan’s new film, have been competing for the top spot at the box office for a little over a week now. Both films are more than excellent – critics agree on that – but it is Greta Gerwig’s comedy that emerges as the winner of the duel, having grossed 160 million dollars in its first three days compared to just over 80 million dollars for Oppenheimer. Still, it is a decent score for Nolan’s film, as it means it had a better opening than The Flash. To recall, The Flash only made 55 million dollars in its first week of release.
However, there are still a few steps to climb for Oppenheimer to become a profitable film, as it has cost over 100 million dollars in total. For us, it is just a matter of a few hours or a few days for it to be fully reimbursed.
But today, if Christopher Nolan can afford to blow the budget, we still remember the 165 million dollars of Interstellar, the 200 million dollars of Tenet, and the 250 million dollars of The Dark Knight Rises; in the past, the director settled for much less to create his masterpieces.
First film, first success!
In 1998, Christopher Nolan released his very first film! Titled Following, it had no intentions of being an Oppenheimer, but it already had a lot of ambition. Shot entirely in black and white, it cost a mere 2000 times less than his latest film. In other words, Christopher Nolan only invested 6000 dollars for it to come to life.
Despite this tiny budget, the film received a very warm reception from critics, with a total of 83% on Rotten Tomatoes, which is not insignificant. It is thanks to this initial success that Nolan decided to go big from then on, starting with Memento, his second feature film. It had a budget of over 9 million dollars and starred Guy Pearce (Prometheus, The Hurt Locker, L.A. Confidential).
