You're Not Dreaming: Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer Has Passed Inception At The US Box Office
Christopher Nolan continues to outdo himself at the box office. The acclaimed filmmaker is enjoying one of the best runs of his impressive career right now with "Oppenheimer," the R-rated biopic about the man chiefly responsible for creating the atomic bomb. As evidence of just how well things are going with Nolan's latest, the film actually now stands as his highest-grossing movie domestically that doesn't feature Batman in it. This past weekend, the last domino standing between J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Caped Crusader fell, and that domino was "Inception."
"Oppenheimer" added another $9 million in its sixth weekend domestically, while expanding even further overseas. With that, the film has now amassed $777.1 million worldwide, per The Numbers. Most importantly, that total includes $300 million in North America, which is good enough to put it past "Inception," which earned $292.5 million back in 2010. This is unadjusted for inflation, but it's still a pretty damn good indicator of just how much cache Nolan has with general moviegoers. A three-hour, R-rated biopic with very little action seems far less commercially viable than a big-budget sci-fi movie about a dream heist, after all.
As far as the worldwide total goes, "Oppenheimer" still needs to keep chugging along to pass "Inception," which earned $825.8 million globally in its day. That said, at the rate it's going – in large part thanks to a stellar run in IMAX — that is all but assured. At this point, it looks like "Oppenheimer" will finish its run much closer to $900 million (if not even higher) than $800 million.
'You mustn't be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling'
One of the most impressive things about this movie's run, in particular, is that it hasn't topped the box office in any week that it's been in theaters. "Oppenheimer" opened directly against "Barbie," which has had itself a fairytale run in theaters up to this point, recently becoming Warner Bros.' highest-grossing movie ever and amassing $1.34 billion globally. But the heavy competition hasn't hurt Universal Pictures or Nolan in the slightest. If anything, the Barbenheimer of it all helped both movies out.
But let's not gloss over Nolan's illustrious career outside of the "Batman" franchise here. The fact that he made "Inception" between "The Dark Knight" and "The Dark Knight Rises" remains astonishing. That a high-concept, original movie like that grossed well over $800 million and went on to earn a Best Picture nomination at the Oscars remains wildly impressive. The fact that he's also taken creative swings like "The Prestige" and "Tenet" and made gigantic hits like "Interstellar" ($647.8 million worldwide) and "Dunkirk" ($512.3 million worldwide) is even more impressive. Whatever Nolan does next, Universal will undoubtedly give him a blank check to do it.
"Oppenheimer" is in theaters now.