Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer Passes Interstellar At The Box Office – Is Inception Next?

Even though "Oppenheimer" has not had a single weekend atop the box office, Christopher Nolan's latest is continuing to mount an impressive run in theaters up to this point. So much so that it is actually threatening to become the acclaimed filmmaker's highest-grossing movie to date that doesn't have Batman in it. As hard as that may be to believe, it is probably going to become a reality before the month is through.

"Oppenheimer" added another $18.8 million to its ever-growing total domestically in its fourth weekend, per The Numbers. Coupled with another impressive showing from overseas moviegoers — with a lot of help from expensive, premium format ticket sales such as IMAX — the film has officially amassed $649 million worldwide. That includes $264.2 million from domestic audiences and $384.75 million internationally. That is just enough to put it past Nolan's 2014 sci-fi blockbuster "Interstellar" ($647.8 million worldwide).

The only other Nolan movie that has made more outside of a major franchise is "Inception," which pulled in a truly impressive $825.7 million back in 2010. Barring an absolute collapse in the coming weeks, "Oppenheimer" could pass Nolan's mind-bending heist thriller to become the filmmaker's biggest movie other than "The Dark Knight" ($1 billion) and "The Dark Knight Rises" ($1.08 billion). The odds of this movie joining the $1 billion club are slim to none, but that was never really in play. Against a $100 million budget, "Oppenheimer" has already been a bigger success than anyone at Universal Pictures could have hoped for. The time to pop the champagne is now.

I've said it before, but it is worth repeating: The fact that an R-rated, three-hour biopic with very little action has made more money than seemingly far safer commercial bets like "Dunkirk," "Interstellar," and "Inception" is nothing shy of staggering. There are virtually no other filmmakers working at this scale today capable of delivering global audiences this large time and time again. The fact that Nolan has done it repeatedly with almost no misses since leaving the "Batman" franchise behind is truly impressive.

The only real blemish is "Tenet," which was released at the height of the pandemic and, as a result, topped out at $360.2 million worldwide. In hindsight, even that seems impressive given what the theatrical landscape has looked like in the aftermath of the pandemic. Cillian Murphy, who stars as J. Robert Oppenheimer in the film, certainly appears to be Nolan's good luck charm, as he's appeared in nearly all of the filmmaker's biggest hits (save for "Interstellar").

No matter how you want to slice it, it's crystal clear that Nolan has built up a rapport with audiences that can cut through the noise in a meaningful way. As it stands, "Oppenheimer" is probably going to finish its theatrical run closer to $800 million worldwide than $700 million. It is already one of the biggest R-rated movies ever, and may end up second only to "Joker" ($1 billion) when all's said and done. Coupled with the assured awards season love that is coming, this is a victory lap for one of our most respected living filmmakers.

"Oppenheimer" is in theaters now.