The Big Picture
- Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan’s dramatic thriller, is set to become the highest-grossing US movie to never reach the top spot at the box office.
- Sing, which previously had outstanding success, was hindered by competition from Rogue One and Hidden Figures.
- Despite the competition, Oppenheimer has grossed over $270 million in four weeks and continues to sell out IMAX screenings. Box office rankings may not matter to Nolan as long as his film reaches audiences.
Oppenheimer, the phenomenally successful and critically acclaimed dramatic thriller from Christopher Nolan, has achieved a new record milestone in US theatrical history, as it is poised surpass 2016’s Sing to become the highest-grossing domestic movie of all time to never reach the top spot at the box office. One can argue that Oppenheimer may not have reached that achievement, or even the total domestic gross that it did, were it not for the accompanying Barbie factor alongside it, but nonetheless, the film has now hit the target by grossing over $270 million in four weeks of release.
Sing had previously seen outstanding commercial success when it was released, but it was hit by a double whammy when in theaters. Firstly, it came up against Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, which ultimately ended up grossing $534.9 million domestically, obviously taking the number one spot against Sing. Then, as the film showed good legs, it was then prevented from reaching number one again by Hidden Figures, the sleeper hit about the mathematicians behind the first moon landing. However, try not to feel too bad for Sing—it did end up with $634.2 million worldwide, a number which Oppenheimer will also now surpass.
Oppenheimer does have quite a bit of work to do to take the top spot in the “never hit number one” race worldwide. The film needs to gross over $902,548,476 to overtake The Battle at Lake Changjin, a Chinese film that only saw a limited release in the US and Canada. It will also have company in the top ten, however, by another Nolan film in the form of Interstellar, which opened in second place in 2014 against Disney’s Big Hero 6, although ironically Interstellar, as with many Nolan films, legged out and the sci-fi epic ended up outgrossing Baymax and Hiro by $20 million worldwide.
Given its popularity in premium large format theaters, Oppenheimer will undoubtedly continue to bring in money as IMAX screens remain sold out for weeks to come, with the film capturing the imagination of the public in ways that were surely unforeseen by Nolan and his studio, Universal, prior to the film’s release. However, for a cinephile like the Brit auteur, the satisfaction must be overwhelming, and a statistic like being top of the box office will never truly matter to him as long as his film has been seen by as many movie lovers as possible.
You can check out our interview with Nolan for Oppenheimer down below.
This content was originally published here.
