For years, culture predictors have been pondering about the end of movie theaters in the advent of at home streaming. Many filmmakers have expressed their frustration, with Martin Scorsese opening up about flashy superhero films taking over at the box office and pushing out smaller films, and Quentin Tarantino echoing his sentiment. However this summer saw something truly spectacular. Christopher Nolan’s three hour WWII biopic, Oppenheimer, was an unlikely box office hit, becoming the fifth highest grossing movie of the year. Now the filmmaker is opening up about his film’s success and why he finds it encouraging.
In a recent interview with Variety, Nolan talked about his personal outlook on where the movie business is heading and how that informs his own art. While he had heard many lamenting about the death of the theatrical experience, the Interstellar filmmaker felt his own outlook change after releasing Oppenheimer, especially after the film thrived at the box office. He explained:
