Perfect ‘Oppenheimer’ Scores Big with Critics as It Faces ‘Barbie’ at Box-Office
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Director Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, starring Cillian Murphy and Matt Damon, opens today going head to head with Barbie which is all but guaranteed to break box-office records but the biopic has scored near universal acclaim.
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After critics revealed their thoughts on Barbie, Rotten Tomatoes has revealed a winner.
Rotten Tomatoes compiles critics’ reviews from across the web to create a score based on what percentage of the reviews were favorable versus unfavorable.
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However, Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer has blown Greta Gerwig’s picture out of the water with an opening score of 94 per cent.
According to Variety:
“Barbie” will claim the top spot over Christopher Nolan’s atomic bomb drama “Oppenheimer,” which is aiming to collect a solid $50 million from 3,600 cinemas through Sunday. Universal is backing the R-rated historical biopic, which cost $100 million.
“Oppenheimer” runs at three hours (“Barbie” clocks in at just under two), which may limit the screenings per day. However, Nolan’s epic will benefit from premium large format screens like Imax, which is dedicating its entire footprint to his film for three weeks.
Telegraph film critic Robbie Collins wrote on Twitter: “Am torn between being all coy and mysterious about Oppenheimer and just coming out and saying it’s a total knockout that split my brain open like a twitchy plutonium nucleus and left me sobbing through the end credits like I can’t even remember what else.”
Total Film’s Matt Maytum tweeted, “Oppenheimer left me stunned: a character study on the grandest scale, with a sublime central performance by Cillian Murphy. An epic historical drama but with a distinctly Nolan sensibility: the tension, structure, sense of scale, startling sound design, remarkable visuals. Wow.”
AP film writer Lindsey Bahr wrote on Twitter: “Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer is truly a spectacular achievement, in its truthful, concise adaptation, inventive storytelling and nuanced performances from Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, Robert Downey Jr., Matt Damon and the many, many others involved — some just for a scene. It’s hard to talk about something as dense as this in something as silly as a tweet or thread but Oppenheimer really is a serious, philosophical, adult drama that’s as tense and exciting as Dunkirk. And the big moment — THAT MOMENT — is awe inspiring.”
Nolan and his stars detailed the process of making the three-hour film in The Hollywood Reporter’s recent feature story. “There aren’t a lot of people running around on phones,” notes co-star Robert Downey Jr. “There’s no video village. There’s no chair with your name on it. It was focused and Spartan, almost a monastic approach to what we’re doing.”
Oppenheimer opens July 21 and is expected to make about $40 to $49 million across its opening weekend. It’s head-to-head rival Barbie is anticipated to earn about $90 to $110 million.
