Christopher Nolan’s highly anticipated film Oppenheimer has attracted audiences in large numbers since its global release on Friday.
According to Box Office Mojo, a website owned by IMDB and Amazon that tracks international box-office revenue, Oppenheimer earned about $80.5 million in the US over its opening weekend. The historical biopic has also made more than $93 million internationally, bringing its estimated worldwide earnings to more than $174 million.
The film also packed cinemas in the region – Oppenheimer grossed more than $3.9 million in Saudi Arabia and $2.8 million in the UAE this past weekend.
"We have been delighted to see that Dubai’s cinema fans have flocked back to our cinemas to watch Christopher Nolan’s epic Oppenheimer in huge numbers," Murray Rea, director of operations at Roxy Cinemas, tells The National.
"With shows sold out in all our locations ever since the movie’s release on Thursday up until yesterday, more than 60 per cent of our available seats were occupied by audiences watching Oppenheimer this weekend."
Oppenheimer is a three-hour-long period piece, which tells the story of the making of the atomic bomb.
The film stars Irish actor Cillian Murphy as the theoretical physicist and scientist J Robert Oppenheimer. Based on Kai Bird and Martin J Sherwin’s book American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J Robert Oppenheimer, the film details the scientist’s rise as the man who developed the atomic bomb, which ended the Second World War, but ushered in a new era in the development of weapons.
The star-studded cast also includes, Emily Blunt as Oppenheimer's wife Kitty, Matt Damon General Leslie Groves and Robert Downey Jr as Lewis Strauss, a senior member of the United States Atomic Energy Commission.
The cast also includes Florence Pugh, Josh Hartnett, Casey Affleck and Rami Malek.
Dubai resident Nita Odedra attended one of the first shows of Oppenheimer playing at the Imax theatre at the Mall of the Emirates on the day the film was released.
“The cinema was absolutely packed,” she says.
“It was amazing watching it on Imax. You felt very immersed in the movie and the story.”
Odedra also said that, for her, the main pull of the story wasn't the special effects, which were minimal according to Nolan, or even the historical details of the making of the atomic bomb.
“It’s very much a human story. It’s about the nuanced characters, the complexity of the people, and their inner dialogue,” she says.
“This was the first time I’ve seen a movie where the audience clapped at the end. Audiences had a lot of to think about and it was very emotive in the end. Everyone loved it.”
While critics and audiences have been raving about Oppenheimer, internationally, it cannot be ignored that Greta Gerwig’s fantasy comedy Barbie, starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, based on Mattel's Barbie dolls, has also inadvertently helped market Nolan’s film.
The two films, which couldn’t be further apart in stories, themes, tones and intended audiences, were scheduled for the same release date, creating an online pop culture movement, dubbed Barbenheimer.
In the UAE, fans have missed out on the Barbenheimer experience and potential five-hour long cinema stint, as the Barbie's release has been delayed until August 31.
The online rivalry produced many memes and discussions about the differences and similarities between both films, with several online users suggesting watching the two blockbusters back-to-back in one day.
Oppenheimer has become Nolan's highest-grossing opening weekend film outside of The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises, surpassing the earnings of his other critically and commercially acclaimed films such as Interstellar and Inception.
Both Oppenheimer and Barbie, along with Tom Cruise's latest hit Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, which has grossed more than $370 million world wide, are proving that audiences are willing to leave the comfort of their homes and content available on streaming services to head back to the theatre.
"We are very pleased that cinemagoers continue to give a huge vote of confidence to our business and to the cinematic experience by coming to watch blockbusters in the way they were intended – on the big screen," adds Rea.
"The popularity of Oppenheimer and Mission Impossible confirms that big blockbuster movies still have the star power to bring audiences back to the cinema."
