The success of Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” is being seen not just as a sign audiences can still come out to cinemas for adult dramas, but also re-affirming the importance of IMAX’s place in exhibition’s future.
Nolan is hardly the first to be championing the giant screen format, but he has become one of the brand’s most notable cheerleaders – albeit one who uses guild Q&As and magazine feature pieces instead of high-energy dance routines.
The result has seen “Oppenheimer” rake over $179 million globally from IMAX cinemas alone, a good chunk of the film’s over $900 million global haul to date.
Fellow filmmaker Denis Villeneuve, who has the second part of his sci-fi epic “Dune” due early next year, spoke with The Associated Press recently and said he knew he’d just seen “a masterpiece” when he saw the film and knew it would succeed, but even so it “has blown the roof off of my projection”.
But he also sees this as a sign of the future to come from audiences who, with large widescreen TVs and good sound systems, need to see something they can’t get at home:
“The future of cinema is IMAX and the large formats. The audience wants to see something that they cannot have at home, that they cannot have on streaming. They want to experience an event.”
Nolan’s producer Emma Thomas meanwhile is just happy audiences and studios seem to be remembering the importance of celluloid again:
“This is a moment where everyone else is sort of catching that bug. Chris has always talked a lot about the formats and wanting people to see the best version possible, as far as the way that he intended the film to be seen.
Now I’m hearing that there are other studios who are interested in putting their films out on those film screens. It’s not that we think that film is the only way. Every project is different and requires a different toolkit. We’ve always just wanted filmmakers to have that option.”
She adds that one of the best things about the success of the film is hearing about young people going to see it multiple times, dismissing the idea teenagers wouldn’t be into this kind of material.
“Oppenheimer” is expected to make its way to digital platforms in late November – a full four months after it opened theatrically.
