‘Oppenheimer’ Review: Christopher Nolan’s Epic Thriller Of The Father Of The Atomic Bomb Is As Frightening As It Is Brilliant

Anna Tingley If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Variety may receive an affiliate commission. The script behind Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” has jumped to the top of bestseller lists on Amazon following the film’s smashing blockbuster release last month.

Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer has reached the $500M global milestone, on its way to an estimated $551M through Sunday. This would make it the filmmaker’s fifth-highest-grossing film of all time, ahead of Dunkirk. The worldwide total through Friday is $499.3M, meaning that it has already topped the five-century mark today.

Christopher Nolan’s mega-hit Oppenheimer features dozens of historical characters, but among them you won’t find Ted Hall. And yet Hall, who went to work on the Manhattan Project as a teenage wunderkind physicist, occupies a significant place in the overall story. As a fresh-faced and idealistic youth, he shared top secret details of the atom bomb’s design with Soviet agents — but he was never prosecuted for it.

call a halt to the “Barbenheimer” hashtag that has helped make the film a global blockbusters.“Barbie”, which stars Margot Robbie in the title role, has grossed more than $800 million in worldwide box office, while the film about nuclear scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer that opened around the same time last month has taken in more than $400 million.Warner Bros initially latched on to fan-produced memes that depicted Robbie’s Barbie with actor Cillian Murphy’s Oppenheimer alongside images of nuclear blasts.But fans were not amused in Japan, which in coming days will mark the memorials of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki 78 years ago.“If one were to create an illustration or derivative art of Barbenheimer, it should not be of Barbie delighting in a mushroom cloud,” said Koji Maruyama on the Change.org website.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director One of the most shocking lines in Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” was not scripted by the director himself. It arrives during a scene where Cillian Murphy’s Oppenheimer is meeting with U.S. Secretary of War Henry Stimson and other government officials about where to drop the atomic bombs in Japan.

firing back at insensitive “Barbenheimer” fans in the United States. The international feud began after the official X (formerly Twitter) account for the “Barbie” film commented that “it’s going to be a summer to remember” beneath a movie poster collage that mashed up the toy-inspired flick with “Oppenheimer,” a film about the making of the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, eventually killing nearly 200,000 Japanese.The poster uploaded last month by the account DiscussingFilms on X depicts J.

Warner Bros. Film Group is apologizing for their support of some insensitive “Barbenheimer” content.

The U.S. branch of Warner Bros. issued an apology after being called out by the Japan division for engaging with “insensitive” Barbenheimer tweets.

reports the South China Morning Post.The fan-made poster, which was originally uploaded last month by the account DiscussingFilms on X (formerly Twitter), showed Cillian Murphy’s J. Robert Oppenheimer holding Margot Robbie’s Barbie in front of a mushroom cloud. Japanese users were further aggravated when the official US account for the Barbie film commented on the post, writing that “it’s gonna be a summer to remember.” Since the comment controversy, the hashtag “#NoBarbenheimer” has been trending on social media.

Naman Ramachandran Warner Bros.’ “Barbie” and Universal’s “Oppenheimer” continued their domination of the U.K. and Ireland box office with a combined £21.4 million ($27.3 million) after their second weekend, per numbers from Comscore. Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” topped the charts for the second week in a row with £13.2 million, and now has a total of £47.9 million.

Warner Bros. U.S. has deleted “Barbenheimer” tweets after being criticized by Warner Bros. Japan.

Barbenheimer memes that feature atom bomb images.The apology follows Warner Bros. Japan calling its US counterpart’s behaviour “extremely regrettable”, and also said sorry to fans on its behalf.The Barbenheimer craze, which has resulted in millions around the world watching the two blockbusters Barbie and Oppenheimer back-to-back in an ironic double bill dubbed “Barbenheimer”, has drawn criticism in Japan for making light of the mass destruction caused by the atomic Bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.The Barbie US Twitter account (@barbiethemovie) responded to one Barbenheimer fan art poster that depicts Margot Robbie’s Barbie sitting on the shoulders of Cillian Murphy’s J.

The Barbenheimer hype is drawing moviegoers into theaters in droves, but it is not without controversy.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Warner Bros. Japan released a statement on the country’s official “Barbie” Twitter account criticizing the studio’s U.S. branch for feeding into the “Barbenheimer” craze on social media.

International cinema chain Vue says it has recorded its “best ever week” in large part due to the Barbie and Oppenheimer releases ten days ago.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director “Good Time” and “Uncut Gems” director Benny Safdie expands his acting career with a prominent supporting role in Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer.” He plays Edward Teller, the real-life theoretical physicist known as “the father of the hydrogen bomb.” Teller joined Oppenheimer to work on the atomic bomb in Los Alamos, N.M., focusing on nuclear implosion and uranium hydride research. He was born in Budapest, Austria-Hungary, and had a thick accent, which presented Safdie with one of his biggest acting challenges. “The accent was something I was so nervous about,” Safdie recently told Vulture.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Before Christian Bale landed the role of Batman/Bruce Wayne in Christopher Nolan’s “Dark Knight” trilogy, the filmmaker screen-tested his “Oppenheimer” star Cillian Murphy. Both men have since admitted that Murphy was never a real threat to steal the part from Bale, and Murphy told GQ Magazine UK in a recent interview that it “was for the best” that Bale won the coveted role over him anyway. “Yes, I think it was for the best because we got Christian Bale’s performance, which is a stunning interpretation of that role,” Murphy said.

Barbie was more than it actually cost to make the film itself, it has been reported.Greta Gerwig‘s film, starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, came to cinemas on Friday (July 21).Ahead of its box office opening, the film hosted a host of marketing activities from making a real-life Barbie dreamhouse to pink burgers and beyond, as well as a social media-led meme trend pitting the film against Christopher Nolan‘s Oppenheimer.Now, it has been reported by Variety that the marketing budget for the film was a staggering $150million (£117m), eclipsing the $145m (£113m) it cost to actually make the film itself.Barbie is currently set to outpace Oppenheimer at the box office over the two films’ shared opening weekend.As things stand, Gerwig’s comedy is set to bring in $110million (£86.6million) at the US box office this weekend, over twice the expected takings of Nolan’s biopic about the creator of the atomic bomb. Oppenheimer is expected to gross $50million (£38.8million).Barbie’s current takings mean it will break the record for the highest-opening film in the US by a female director. Wonder Woman previously held the title, bringing in £103million (£89.1million) in 2017.Warner Bros confirmed that Barbie had earned $22.3million (£17.3million) in box office previews – the highest figure of any film this year.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent While Greta Gerwig’s girl-power blockbuster “Barbie” is ruling over the French box office, another much younger female-led franchise, “Miraculous: Ladybug & Cat Noir” has managed to pull approximately €8 million ($8.9 million) at the local B.O., from more than 1.1 million tickets, since bowing on July 5. Budgeted around $80 million and directed by Jeremy Zag, “Miraculous: Ladybug & Cat Noir” ranks as one of France’s most ambitious animated films to date. Featuring eight original songs, a queer storyline and a postcard-worthy Parisian backdrop, the musical film broke ground as the first female-powered superhero movie set in the French capital. Even as it faces stiff competition from “Barbie” and Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer,” “Miraculous: Ladybug & Cat Noir” has enough legs to match or surpass recent non-U.S. animated hits such as “Ballerina,” which sold 1.8 million tickets in France. It garnered 318,144 admissions on its opening day in theaters, a record for a French animated film. In Germany, the movie sold 586,148 tickets in three weeks and is currently the leading family title at the box office.

Cillian Murphy has explained how director Christopher Nolan helped him “unlock” J. Robert Oppenheimer in preparation for the role.The actor, who plays the theoretical physicist in Nolan’s biopic Oppenheimer, referred to an “amazing phrase” the director used to describe the complex historical figure.Speaking in an interview with NME, Murphy said: “Chris used this amazing phrase.