In honor of its Best Picture win at the Oscars last year, director Christopher Nolan‘s Oppenheimer was re-released in select IMAX locations across North America this week. The period biographical thriller, starring Cillian Murphy as the theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, was also re-released in three venues equipped to present it in IMAX 70 mm, Nolan’s preferred format. Oppenheimer emerged as a record-breaking box office hit when it was released in July 2023, ultimately concluding its run several months later with nearly $1 billion in global box office revenue.
The movie was re-released in 80 locations this week, grossing $39,000 on opening day for a per-theater average of $488. While this doesn’t exactly move the needle for it all that drastically, it’s yet another reminder of the pull that Nolan has over audiences. Oppenheimer delivered the sixth-best per-theater average on Friday’s charts, behind The Monkey, which saw a per-theater average of $558 on the same day. Oppenheimer‘s domestic total now stands at just a hair under $330 million, while its global haul stands at over $975 million. It’s Nolan’s third-biggest film, behind The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises; the highest-grossing biographical film of all time, and the highest-grossing World War II film of all time.
In a post-release chat with his wife, producer Emma Thomas, and author Kai Bird, Nolan admitted that Oppenheimer‘s box office performance “vastly exceeded” any expectations that he or the studio had. The film marked his first collaboration with Universal after his public fall-out with Warner Bros. During the chat, Nolan said, “The truth is, any time a film succeeds that isn’t expected to succeed, it’s an encouraging thing for Hollywood in every which way. It’s an encouraging thing for filmmakers. This is always the tension in Hollywood, between the familiar and what is predicted to make money, the sort of meat and potatoes of how the studios stay in business, but there’s always a desire on the part of the audiences for something new as well… We vastly exceeded our highest expectations for the project. That’s encouraging for everybody.”
Nolan Is Putting Together His New Film, ‘The Odyssey’
Nolan won his first Best Director honor for the film, while Murphy won the Best Actor award. Recently, the filmmaker’s 2014 science-fiction epic Interstellar was re-released worldwide in honor of its 10th anniversary. It ended up grossing over $50 million worldwide. Nolan is now putting together his star-studded new project, The Odyssey, also with Universal. Headlined by Matt Damon, who will be supported by an A-list ensemble, the film is slated for release in July 2026. You can check out Oppenheimer in IMAX theaters, and stay tuned to Collider for more updates.
