The legacy of Tenet was technically considered a box office bomb, the film’s premiere amid the COVID-19 pandemic poorly impacted its performance. Nolan’s big follow-up is July 2023’s Oppenheimer, and while the Barbie vs. Oppenheimer box office battle has long been anticipated, Dunkirk proves that the real competition for the Cillian Murphy-starring biopic isn’t Greta Gerwig’s satire.
As a war drama, Dunkirk’s real historical adaptation marked a significant departure from Christopher Nolan’s high-grossing, time-obsessed sci-fi tales like 2014’s Interstellar. Dunkirk still became a massive success at the box office in 2017, ultimately earning $527 million and suring Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan as the highest-grossing World War II movie worldwide. While Dunkirk’s box office broke records for its genre and was one of the highest-grossing movies of 2017, its success is undermined by the precedent set by Christopher Nolan himself – a factor that will also greatly affect Oppenheimer.
Dunkirk Proves Christopher Nolan Is His Own Greatest Box Office Opponent
Dunkirk is still an incredible feat for war movies at the box office, but the movie’s total gross can be interpreted as somewhat of a misfire for Christopher Nolan. Before Dunkirk’s $527 million worldwide gross, Nolan had released huge box office hits Interstellar ($774 million), The Dark Knight Rises ($1.08 billion), Inception ($837 million), and The Dark Knight ($1.006 billion) (via Box Office Mojo). The 2017 war drama’s box office is thus relatively low compared to Nolan’s other movies over the preceding decade, which makes its financial legacy less impressive within this context.
Dunkirk may objectively be a great theatrical success, especially for war movies, but Christopher Nolan’s high-grossing filmography makes him his own greatest box office competition. Dunkirk became one of the top-grossing movies of summer 2017, but the legacy of its success compared to contemporary competition like Spider-Man: Homecoming or War for the Planet of the Apes isn’t as significant. Rather, Nolan's movies must primarily work to beat the box office totals of his previous projects, and Dunkirk was a step down from his other post-Prestige releases.
Oppenheimer's Box Office Legacy Ultimately Won't Be Judged By Barbie
The real competition for Christopher Nolan’s movie Oppenheimer isn’t the other movies releasing in 2023, but rather Nolan’s past films like Dunkirk, Inception, and Interstellar. While the winner of Barbie and Oppenheimer’s box office battle will be a fun metric for initial success, the latter movie’s enduring box office legacy will be weighed more heavily its ranking within Christopher Nolan’s highly lucrative filmography. Whereas Barbie earning over $400 million would be a massive victory for Greta Gerwig, anything lower than Dunkirk’s $527 million – and especially Tenet's $365 million – for Oppenheimer will, unfortunately, be interpreted as troubling for Nolan’s unique box office reputation.
Christopher Nolan has one of the most impressive box office streaks in cinematic history, not simply because of how much his movies have grossed, but also because of how consistent his success has been. While Steven Spielberg is the highest-grossing director of all time, he’s also notable for having box office bombs interspersed between his franchise and drama hits. Since Nolan’s threshold for success is much higher than most other films and filmmakers, a box office bomb would absurdly be somewhere around $300 million. Even if Oppenheimer breaks records in its genre and performs well against other 2023 releases, its success will ultimately be measured by how it stands against Nolan’s own difficult-to-beat filmography.
Source: Box Office Mojo
