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| Cillian Murphy in Christopher Nolan's "Oppenheimer" (Image Source: ClickTheCity.com/Universal Pictures Philippines) |
From waves of raves among local fans and critics, Christopher Nolan’s latest star-studded and explosive cinematic masterpiece “Oppenheimer” opened with a big bang at the Philippine box office at Php57.7-M in just five days. Fiery from its first five days of release in the Philippines, “Oppenheimer” grossed Php19.018-M alone in just 9 IMAX screens, now making it the highest-grossing IMAX release for 2023. From regular 2D screens, it hauled another Php38.74-M cinemas nationwide.
This makes it now the 2nd Biggest Saturday Opening for a Universal Pictures release (next to Fast X and ahead of The Super Mario Bros. Movie). It has also solidified its place here as the 3rd Biggest Weekend Opening for a Christopher Nolan film, after The Dark Knight Rises and The Dark Knight, but ahead of Batman Begins. Despite its R-16 rating and a limited market share, the first weekend box-office reflects a 650% increase in initial forecast that’s above most optimistic targets and is poised to reach Php100M and beyond in the next few days or weeks. Best seen in IMAX, Christopher Nolan has strongly advocated for the big screen experience for all of his films. The filmmaker who pushed the limits of cinematic storytelling to tell epic stories about unlikely heroes and audacious schemes that examine the necessity, morality, and hubris of ambitious endeavor has successfully engaged the worldwide audience once again in his latest immersive cinematic work in Oppenheimer.
Oppenheimer is an IMAX®-shot epic thriller that thrusts audiences into the pulse-pounding paradox of the enigmatic man who must risk destroying the world in order to save it. The film gathers together an extraordinary and massive cast that includes Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, Robert Downey Jr., Matt Damon, Florence Pugh, Matthew Modine, Tom Conti, Rami Malek, Kenneth Branagh, Josh Hartnett, Casey Affleck, Benny Safdie and Josh Peck. The film was shot exclusively with large format cameras — Panavision® 65mm and IMAX® 65mm. “What large-format photography gives you is clarity, first and foremost. It’s a format that allows the audience to become fully immersed in the story and in the reality that you’re taking them to. In the case of Oppenheimer, it’s a story of great scope and great scale and great span," says Nolan.
Nolan concludes, “What I wanted to do was take the audience into the mind and the experience of a person who sat at the absolute center of the largest shift in history. Like it or not, J. Robert Oppenheimer is the most important person who ever lived. He made the world we live in, for better or for worse. And his story must be seen to be believed.” Distributed in the Philippines by Universal Pictures International, Oppenheimer is currently showing in 227 cinemas nationwide.
