Christopher Nolan, the director of Oppenheimer, has reacted to fans who assumed he would use an actual nuclear explosion while filming the upcoming biopic.
The film stars Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer, a theoretical physicist who was crucial in the creation of nuclear weapons for the Manhattan Project. With a $180 million budget, much of Oppenheimer is likely to be done with actual effects.
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Christopher Nolan said that some of his admirers believed he would be detonating a real atomic bomb. He was pleased by their notion that he would devote himself so much to the film’s accuracy, but he also pointed out how terrifying that could be.
“It’s flattering that people would think I would be capable of something as extreme as that on the one hand, but it’s also a little bit scary.”
Nolan’s no-CGI concept for Oppenheimer explains why some people may believe he do such a thing for the movie. However, detonating a genuine nuclear device would expose the cast and crew to the long-term dangers of radioactive radiation. Even if Nolan had the ability to unleash an atomic bomb on Oppenheimer, doing so would contradict the film’s message about the atrocities caused by the development of nuclear weapons.
However, it is fair to assume that the explosions in the film will be made by practical VFX. Because both the audience and the characters in the film will be responding to a large simulation of what an atomic bomb might look like, the explosions will have more impact.
