Posted in: Movies, Universal | Tagged: christopher nolan, oppeheimer

Christopher Nolan Feels "Great About The State Of The Movie Business"

Oppenheimer director Christopher Nolan says that he feels "great about the state of the movie business, based on my own experience."

Published Sat, 23 Dec 2023 19:08:08 -0600

by Kaitlyn Booth

Comments

When the pandemic hit, and it became more and more apparent that this wasn't a little thing that would go away within a week or two, people began to wonder what the future would look like. We were living through what felt like a fever dream, so figuring out what the world would look like when we woke up was almost impossible. It became very apparent that movies took a major hit from the pandemic both in terms of actual productions and movie theaters. For a little while, it seemed like some people thought the entire industry was about to go under. The pandemic forced studios to deal with the streaming problem that they had been ignoring for years now, and we're heading into four years since COVID changed all of our outlooks on the world. In some ways, it feels like the movie industry is just recovering this year, and no one is happier with how the industry currently looks than director Christopher Nolan. Nolan got some flack from people for insisting his previous film Tenet get a theatrical release during the height of COVID. When it was announced that Oppenheimer would share a release date with Barbie, people weren't sure this would work out. Yet, it did; two completely different films leaned on each other and created a cultural moment we haven't seen since before the pandemic. Nolan recently spoke to Empire about the state of the industry and how he feels about things now that the 2023 box office dust has settled.

"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," Nolan said. "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."

How Oppenheimer, A Movie About Creating Destruction, "Healed" Theaters — Writer, director, and producer Christopher Nolan on the set of OPPENHEIMER.

So, while there have been some pretty big failures in the industry overall, that seems to come from the fact that audiences are too poor to accept anything other than greatness in theaters. We don't have any disposable income, so no one is willing to risk the very little disposable income we do have on a mediocre movie, and, unfortunately, most of the big films that stumbled this year were mediocre. So Nolan is having a good year, and so is the team that made Barbie; we also have to give props to Pixar, who started out weak but proved they belong on the big screen. People are still adjusting, and there are still films out there with budgets like they are going to do 2018/2019 numbers, but despite the studio wars everyone seems to push, at the end of the day, one success story tends to lift everyone up. The dual nature of Barbie and Oppenheimer from two completely different studios proves you can lift others up while rising to the top.

Oppenheimer: Release Date, Summary, Cast List

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. It was released in theaters on July 21, 2023, and will be released on 4K Blu-Ray on November 21, 2023.

The film stars Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer and Emily Blunt as his wife, biologist, and botanist Katherine "Kitty" Oppenheimer. Oscar® winner Matt Damon portrays General Leslie Groves Jr., director of the Manhattan Project, and Robert Downey, Jr. plays Lewis Strauss, a founding commissioner of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. Academy Award® nominee Florence Pugh plays psychiatrist Jean Tatlock, Benny Safdie plays theoretical physicist Edward Teller, Michael Angarano plays Robert Serber, and Josh Hartnett plays pioneering American nuclear scientist Ernest Lawrence.

Oppenheimer also stars Oscar® winner Rami Malek and reunites Nolan with eight-time Oscar® nominated actor, writer, and filmmaker Kenneth Branagh. The cast includes Dane DeHaan (Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets), Dylan Arnold (Halloween franchise), David Krumholtz (The Ballad of Buster Scruggs), Alden Ehrenreich (Solo: A Star Wars Story) and Matthew Modine (The Dark Knight Rises).