Image via Universal
According to Christopher Nolan, his upcoming movie Oppenheimer is “one of the most challenging projects” he has ever done.
Without using CGI effects, Nolan reconstructed the first nuclear weapon explosion, he said in an interview with Total Film.
“I think recreating the Trinity test without the use of computer graphics was a huge challenge to take on,” Nolan said, referring to the first-ever nuclear weapon detonation, in New Mexico. “Andrew Jackson—my visual effects supervisor, I got him on board early on—was looking at how we could do a lot of the visual elements of the film practically, from representing quantum dynamics and quantum physics to the Trinity test itself, to recreating, with my team, Los Alamos up on a mesa in New Mexico in extraordinary weather, a lot of which was needed for the film, in terms of the very harsh conditions out there—there were huge practical challenges.”
Speaking of “huge practical challenges,” Nolan opted to buy an actual Boeing 747 plane and crash it into a hangar in Tenet, instead of putting the money toward CGI. “We started to run the numbers…it became apparent that it would actually be more efficient to buy a real plane of the real size, and perform this sequence for real in camera, rather than build miniatures or go the CG route,” he explained to Total Film in 2020.
In the film Oppenheimer, Cillian Murphy plays physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, who oversaw the Manhattan Project and the creation of the first atomic bomb. The talented cast includes Robert Downey Jr., Emily Blunt, Florence Pugh, Gary Oldman, Matt Damon, and Rami Malek.