Oppenheimer is currently a stormy film at the box office with sales approaching the global milestone of $650 million. This achievement also helps the film become the best-selling work of exploiting the theme of World War II in history. In Vietnam, just released in theaters last weekend, the project immediately climbed to the top with a revenue of about 13 billion – a figure that is not bad for a film in the historical and dramatic genre.
Director Christopher Nolan on the set of Oppenheimer.
Behind the success of Oppenheimer is Christopher Nolan, a name that is too familiar to the world of cinema fans. He is the director with the highest salary currently, ranging from about $ 18 million – $ 20 million excluding revenue commissions. In addition to directing, Nolan often holds the position of producer. This helps the British director often pocket from $ 50 million to $ 100 million per project. Special, The Dark Knight Rises (2012) once helped him earn more than $180 million in commissions when the blockbuster surpassed the billion-dollar mark at the box office.
Hollywood’s “Midas Hand”
In the group of contemporary directors, Christopher Nolan becomes a rare name capable of making “box office guarantees” today. His movies always have their own unique charm, no need to rely on a brand, an available famous character of the entertainment industry. Each of Nolan’s projects has been awaited and discussed by movie fans since it was a paper project and immediately caused a fever when it was released in theaters. To date, Nolan’s box office revenue has surpassed 5 billion USD and won many awards, big and small.
With OppenheimerChristopher Nolan tells the story of a character who is likened to the “father of the atomic bomb”. The film’s content revolves around the life of scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer – who directly directed the Manhattan Project and contributed greatly to the birth of a weapon with destructive power.
Oppenheimer grossed more than $650 million worldwide, although the content was judged to be complex, without many entertainment elements.
Many people used to doubt that with a historical scenario it would be difficult to Oppenheimer conquer the audience. However, thanks in part to the prestige of Christopher Nolan, the global cinema world is still flocking to theaters. The work also received a “rain” of praise from critics with a high Rotten Tomatoes score of 93%. Oppenheimer is also expected to be a bright candidate for the upcoming Oscars season.
Christopher Nolan started his career with a low-budget indie film Following (1998), made with the couple’s own savings of $6,000. The film attracted attention at international film festivals, had a theatrical release and helped Nolan gain prestige enough to call for investment and become a name sought after by producers. 2nd movie – Memento (2000) – officially made Nolan famous. The film was written and directed by him himself, with the participation of real star Guy Pearce. The project helped Nolan receive a series of great honors, including Oscar and Golden Globe nominations for Best Original Screenplay.
After his first films, Nolan quickly built a prestigious brand in the film industry thanks to his unique storytelling and compelling scripts. His films often use a non-linear structure, shuffling events, without any chronological sequence. This way of telling makes the work create many unexpected twists for viewers, and at the same time opens up many different directions for the story, depending on the audience to choose the ending according to their wishes.
Nolan’s heyday was when he accepted to direct DC’s Batman series. The work is considered as a Hollywood milestone, contributing to the development of the superhero movie line that has dominated the world box office for many years. Besides, he also scored with a series of works with original scripts such as Inception, Interstellar or more recently Dunkirk, Tenet…
Another feature that makes Nolan’s appeal is the rationality of the story’s development. Although he often chooses creative genres like science fiction, his films always feel very real thanks to the meticulous production. The details related to science are built in great detail by Nolan, consulting with leading experts in the industry before being put on screen. Therefore, these works all bring unique experiences to viewers, not stopping at mere entertaining movies.
Hollywood’s Most Playful Filmmaker
Talent and fame make Christopher Nolan the most sought-after director in the world today. Accompanying that are the priority benefits that he enjoys in addition to the record salary equivalent to Hollywood’s A-list stars and actors. One rule when accepting Nolan’s film projects is that he has full creative control over the projects. This is also a responsibility he places heavily on his own shoulders before releasing his brain children to the audience.
Having full control of film projects also helps Nolan unleash his creativity in production. Recent projects of the British director are increasingly upgraded in terms of “playability”. In Oppenheimer, because he was “allergic” to the use of special effects, Nolan decided to find a way to recreate the scene of the atomic bomb explosion instead of using CGI. “We studied the kinetics and quantum physics of the Trinity test, then recreated the explosion on a hill in New Mexico weather permitting, with a lot of great challenges. in reality,” the director said in an interview. This 10-minute scene took the crew several weeks to complete.
Christopher Nolan recreated the scene of the atomic bomb explosion without CGI in Oppenheimer.
Before that, Nolan also surprised many colleagues and viewers when he bought a real Boeing 747 to film the scene where it crashed into a building and caught fire. This decision not only costs money but also makes his team work hard to plan because it can only be done once. In Interstellarthe director also played big when he ordered a whole hundred square kilometers of cornfield just to shoot a chase scene.
Although he has never received an Oscar nomination as a director, Christopher Nolan has still proven himself to be one of the most prominent and influential filmmakers in the world of cinema today. His films always receive the eager anticipation of the audience. Christopher Nolan created a large fanbase with the motto: “In Nolan we trust”. In response, the British filmmaker never seems to let his fans down.
