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Well Barbie will finish inbetween Oppenheimer and Avatar 2. Barbie will likely end up making as much as Maverick last year. To be fair I found Oppie’s run even more impressive than Barbie’s, and Nolan clearly benefited from all the Barbenheimer mania.
Anyway a Nolan 007 would make $200M in the UK alone! 🤯
I think a Nolan Bond would be HUGE. We would be back in SF territory again.
If Nolan does get the next Bond gig, I wonder if he will have a say in who the actor will be.
Regardless though, I've said in the past that apart from specific fan-bases or film buff types, the average person often doesn't know who Nolan is. Nor do they much care. He's just a name on a poster for them. Like it or not, these are the majority of people going to see these films, and the fact that it's a Bond film will further dilute the director's name for this crowd. I think for a Bond film to achieve the heights of SF there have to be other factors outside of the quality of the film itself (of course the quality needs to be good, no doubt) or the director. It doesn't need to be Nolan or anyone quite as 'high profile' to achieve this height as it's more often than not an irrelevant factor for audiences. Perhaps to achieve a level of quality to the storytelling/filmmaking he's important (but this is subjective and one could easily say Nolan might not be the right director to herald a Bond film. I would certainly say we could easily get a very boring Bond film from him). I'd argue it's even debatable whether a lead actor's debut Bond film can actually get to those heights - often those creative/financial expectations are surpassed midway into an actor's tenure when audience expectation of the new era/actor allows a level of publicity to be drummed up that a debut couldn't.
I can’t see Nolan working on ANY movie without him being the final word on casting.
On his first Batman movie I’d believe that but he has a LOT more power now than he had then especially due to the huge success of Oppenheimer.Now it’s a case that EON would be lucky to have him and I can’t see him making a movie where he’s not entirely happy with the casting.
Yeah, Nolan would definitely have someone in mind, even if EON usually have the final say. But I do wonder if that Nolan smile and slight raise of his eyebrows in that Oppenheimer interview, when ATJ was mentioned as a potential Bond confirms that Nolan & EON have a mutual agreement towards ATJ as James Bond.
Murphy has to be the bookie's favourite for Best Actor next year, but there isn't a bad performance among the bunch.
I do plan of seeing it again, hopefully, I can grab a 70mm IMAX ticket before it stops playing in that format.
Usually, even in the beat intentioned movies of this type, there is a tendency to create composite characters which are stand ins for multiple people, or to over attribute the work done by one individual. The film APOLLO 13 (1995), while great, did this a lot. Therefore, I was pleasantly surprised by the number of real characters Nolan managed to give screen time to. In addition to the “big names” that are usually associated with the telling of this story (Albert Einstein and Edward Teller, for example), Nolan managed to give airtime to Niels Bohr, Vannevar Bush and Enrico Fermi, among others. I think a lot of that has to do – in part – from Nolan using official transcripts for certain events (the hearing where Oppenheimer lost his security clearance, for instance).
Of course, the acting was top-notch and I think Cillian Murphy, Robert Downey Jr (wow, I’d almost forgot what a good actor he is) and others will get plenty of nominations come award season. Naturally, two pf my one of my favorite scenes occurred near the end of the film – and both involved Kitty Oppenheimer, brilliantly played Emily Blunt. The first, during the security clearance renewal hearing, where she – without directly saying as much – tells the investigators to go **** themselves. Any reading of US history for that period will reveal that that type of thing actually happened quite a lot BTW. The other occurs when Edward Teller extends his hand to her at an award ceremony (in 1963) and she refuses.
As for the controversy about not showing (directly) the effects of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or even the heartbreaking stories of the test site “down winders”, I can see both sides of the argument. First, in Nolan’s defense, the film is about the perspective of one individual. And the complete story of something as immense as a Manhattan Project or an Apollo Program is – by definition – comprised of many different and often contradictory perspectives and voices. Even if we allow for the central role that Oppenheimer played, his was not the only important one, nor did he have sole say in the matter. And I think that the film touches on that, while still maintaining its’ focus on him as an individual.
Yet, by not showing it, some viewers may walk away from seeing the film, thinking that dropping an atomic bomb on two cities is some type of abstraction (see many of those Barbenheimer memes).
In short, people should see (and view) the film, not as the final word about the subject, but as a starting point for further discussions.
That is my two cents anyway.
PS: As a lover of classic B&W films from the 1940s and 1950s, I especially loved Nolan’s strategic use of it in the film. I wish more directors would use it (see the PTS for CR’06, for example). BRAVO, Mr. Nolan!
In looking back on my viewing of the film, I haven’t decided how *I* would have directly shown the bombings without it feeling shoehorned in or gratuitous. Maybe, I’ll be a little more constructive after a second viewing. Or maybe not.
Anyway, the following LA Times opinion piece on the matter attempts to place not showing the bombings in the context of the overall film, and in the context of Nolan’s general approach to film making.
https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2023-08-11/oppenheimer-atomic-bomb-hiroshima-nagasaki-christopher-nolan
According to the academy’s new “ inclusion “ standards,Oppenheimer doesn’t qualify.
Apparently if your movie isn’t “ diverse “ enough,you’re out of the race.Oppenheimer dared to have a mostly white male cast and very few persons of colour,they also did not have enough strong powerful women ( though I thought Emily Blunt was quite good ) or LGBTQ or “ non binary “ characters 🙄
That's not clear. Oppenheimer has to qualify on 2 of 4 categories: 1.) On-Screen Representation, 2.) Creative Leadership and Project Team, 3.) Industry Access and Opportunities or 4.) Audience Development.
While Oppenheimer would seem not to qualify on #1, it certainly could qualify on the other three categories. I would assume that the studio and Nolan himself would be scrupulous about ensuring that the film would be eligible for Best Picture. Full details at:
https://www.oscars.org/news/academy-establishes-representation-and-inclusion-standards-oscarsr-eligibility
Why are there weapons mounted on the wall?