More than eight months (and a best picture Oscar win) after “Oppenheimer” hit theaters, Christopher Nolan’s historical epic continues to discover new audiences.
The film opened over the weekend in its final market, Japan, with $2.5 million from 343 theaters. It ranked third on the country’s box office charts after two local choices, the horror film “Casa Incomum” and the animation “Haikyu!!” According to Universal magazine, “Oppenheimer” is the biggest opening weekend of 2024 for a Hollywood release in Japan, surpassing “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” ($1.6 million) and “Dune: Part Two ” ($1.3 million).
With these ticket sales, “Oppenheimer” reaches an impressive $965 million worldwide. It’s an excellent result for an R-rated three-hour drama that takes place mostly in laboratories and the corridors of American authorities. In addition to its box office wealth, the US$100 million film won seven Oscars, including best film and director.
It is common for films produced in the United States to premiere in Japan months later than in North America. But before the release of “Oppenheimer,” there was speculation about whether the film would be shown in Japan. It is controversial in Japan given the film’s subject matter, which follows the American theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer (played by Cillian Murphy) who led the creation of atomic bombs. These weapons of mass destruction were detonated in 1945 over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing hundreds of thousands of Japanese citizens.
Distributor Toho-Towa, which releases almost all Hollywood films in Japan, chose not to be involved with “Oppenheimer.” It looked like the film wouldn’t arrive in Japan until last December, when Bitters Finish acquired the film “after months of thoughtful dialogue on the matter.” Bitters Finish previously handled the release of the Oscar-winning film “Parasite” in Japan and is currently involved in the Oscar-nominated film “Excellent Days” in Japan.
Compared to Nolan’s previous films, initial ticket sales for “Oppenheimer” were above “Interstellar,” “Batman Begins,” “Dunkirk” and “The Dark Knight”; alongside “The Dark Knight Rises” and “Tenet”; and in “Inception” at the same implementation level, according to Regular. “Inception” is the director’s highest-grossing film in Japan with $42 million, while his two most recent releases, “Tenet” and “Dunkirk,” generated $25 million and $14.8 million, respectively. in cinemas across the country.
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