Christopher Nolan drops a bombshell by sharing the actual budget for Oppenheimer

Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer is about to take the stage and it will cause a lot of trouble for its competition. The first reactions to the film have called it a “Spectacular Achievement” and a “total knockout.” Nolan’s name itself has become a huge brand as it instantly raises the hype for any film he is directing. Along with the hype, it also raises the budget of his films!

Before his infamous departure from Warner Bros., he directed most of his films for the studio. With his films constantly turning out to be profitable, Warner Bros. never stepped back from allocating bigger budgets to his films.

Now, the same has happened with Universal Pictures as well because even Oppenheimer got a huge production budget.

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Christopher Nolan reveals Oppenheimer's budget was $180 million

Christopher Nolan’s new movie (Image via Universal)

Back when Christopher Nolan decided to direct Oppenheimer, the reported budget he got for the film was $100 million since it was a period piece drama. But that’s not the case at all as while speaking with Variety, the visionary director revealed the actual production budget of the film.

Apparently, Oppenheimer is 80% more expensive than what it was initially thought to be. Nolan talked about his conversation with producer Emma Thomas and revealed why he needed a bigger budget.

“The runtime is two minutes shorter than 'Avengers: Endgame,' so we cling to that. I said to (producer) Emma Thomas very early on that it’s going to be a three-hour film. I have to write a script that reflects that. That was our conversation with the studio. It’s a big story and needs a big talent. It’s a 180-page script and it’s a $180 million movie,” he said.

The involvement of a stellar A-List cast, including Cillian Murphy, Robert Downey Jr., Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, and many others is what added to the budget being so high.

Cillian Murphy in Nolan’s new movie (Image via Sportskeeda)

But another reason why it cost so much was that Nolan is someone who always believes in practical filmmaking and minimal reliance on green screens and CGI. His way of filming is usually expensive, and with him portraying an exploding atom bomb, Nolan's latest outing was always going to be expensive.

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The budgets of Christopher Nolan’s past movies

Compared with Nolan’s past movies, Oppenheimer’s budget lies along the lines of all his blockbusters so far.

The Dark Knight (Image via Warner Bros.)

The following list shows the production budget that the director got for all of his movies:

• Following - $6,000
• Memento - $9 million
• Insomnia - $46 million
• Batman Begins - $150 million
• The Prestige - $40 million
• The Dark Knight - $185 million
• Inception - $160 million
• The Dark Knight Rises - $230 million
• Interstellar - $165 million
• Dunkirk - $150 million
• Tenet - $205 million
• Oppenheimer - $180 million

Despite its high quality, Tenet turned out to be a misfire at the box office (mainly due to the pandemic), which caused Nolan’s departure from Warner Bros. Now with Oppenheimer’s huge expenses, it has to be a much bigger success than Tenet and at least deliver along the likes of Interstellar’s $700 million box office total to be a profitable venture.

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Nolan’s latest movie hits theaters on July 21, 2023.