Oppenheimer secures new milestone by dethroning MCU's Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

Christopher Nolan's epic biographical thriller film Oppenheimer has now out-earned Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 to become the third-highest-grossing movie of 2023. Even though this information has not been officially revealed, according to The Hollywood Handle, the superhero movie managed to gross less than the Cillian Murphy starrer. Nolan's film earned almost $852 million.

Cillian Murphy played the legendary theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer in the film. Apart from Murphy, Oppenheimer starred Emily Blunt as Katherine "Kitty" Oppenheimer, Matt Damon as Gen. Leslie Groves, Robert Downey Jr. as Lewis Strauss, Florence Pugh as Jean Tatlock, Josh Hartnett as Ernest Lawrence, Casey Affleck as Boris Pash, Rami Malek as David L. Hill, Kenneth Branagh as Niels Bohr, Benny Safdie as Edward Teller and several others.

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Can Oppenheimer become the highest-grossing film of 2023?

The chance of Oppenheimer becoming the highest-grossing film of 2023 is close to impossible, as it has to earn an extra $400–500 million. The highest-grossing films of 2023 are Barbie and The Super Mario Bros. Movie, with both earning more than $1.3 billion.

Oppenheimer has managed to gross $852 million worldwide so far. Since Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 grossed $845, Christopher Nolan's film has beaten the superhero film in terms of earnings.

In a recent interview with NPR, Nolan explained how it felt to capture the tensions of the infamous Trinity Test, which led to the creation of the first-ever atomic weapon.

Nolan said,

"We had engineered a situation whereby we were performing very large explosions for the actors there, out in the desert in the middle of the night, in the same bunkers they would have been in. But I think that gave all of us some feeling of the tension that would have been there leading up to the Trinity test in particular, because when you do pyrotechnic effects, safety is obviously of paramount importance."

He continued,

"And so there's an extraordinary amount of tension and planning around those moments before you trigger those events. And there's always that slight uncertainty about exactly what they're going to look like, what they're going to sound like, how frightening they're going to be, essentially."

He ended his statement by saying,

"So I think all of us, in our own small way, got some taste of what the tension there would have been for the people at Trinity. And I think that that helped us construct the drama of it for the audience."

This epic biographical thriller is now Christopher Nolan's third-highest-grossing movie after The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises.

The Dark Knight grossed $1.006 billion on a budget of $185 million, while The Dark Knight Rises made $1.081 billion on a budget of $250 to $300 million.

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Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 synopsis and other details

According to Rotten Tomatoes, the synopsis of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 reads,

"In Marvel Studios "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3" our beloved band of misfits are looking a bit different these days. Peter Quill, still reeling from the loss of Gamora, must rally his team around him to defend the universe along with protecting one of their own. A mission that, if not completed successfully, could quite possibly lead to the end of the Guardians as we know them."

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is written and directed by James Gunn. It was released on May 5, 2023.