Only Christopher Nolan could direct a three-hour hybrid of period piece, biopic, history lesson, and dramatic thriller and watch it smash countless records and topple innumerable milestones at the box office, but Oppenheimer is the gift that just keeps on giving.
Warner Bros. would be crying in the corner lamenting the day it let its former golden goose sever a 20-year working relationship if Barbie hadn’t released on exactly the same day, but one studio’s loss has nonetheless been another’s gain after Universal presumably had to hire more accountants to deal with the money that keeps on rolling in.
The latest notch on the father of the atomic bomb’s belt has seen it overtake The Matrix Reloaded to become the fourth highest-grossing R-rated release in the history of cinema, with Oppenheimer‘s worldwide haul now sitting at $777 million and counting. There’s a Chinese rollout on the horizon, too, so this gravy train isn’t even close to slowing down.
As a result, the only three titles ahead of it are Deadpool, Deadpool 2, and Joker, meaning that Oppenheimer is the top-earning R-rated non-comic book adaptation there’s ever been, for those of you with a soft spot for highly specific records that no other film can lay claim to.
When it comes to dropping F-bombs, showing skin, and displaying gnarly violence, then Nolan’s latest is the biggest one of them all that doesn’t feature either a superhero or supervillain, which is an achievement every bit as remarkable and mind-blowing as it sounds.
