Oppenehimer's nuclear bomb explosion achieved without CGI, reveals Christopher Nolan

With films like Interstellar, Tenet, and Inception, Christopher Nolan is renowned for some of his best cinematic works. Christopher Nolan recently said to Total Film magazine that he made his new film "Oppenehimer" using a CGI-free recreation of the first nuclear weapon detonation.

Cillian Murphy, a frequent Nolan collaborator, plays J. Robert Oppenheimer, a lead character in the Manhattan Project and the development of the atomic bomb during World War II, in the movie. It should come as no surprise that Nolan chose to film a nuclear weapon explosion using practical effects rather than visual effects since the director has always been inclined towards that approach while creating a movie.

An example of this can been witnnesed in 2020 moviecalled 'Tenet' in which he actually exploded a real Boeing 747. Without the use of computer images, Nolan stated, "I think replicating the Trinity test [the first nuclear weapon detonation, in New Mexico] was a big task to take on."

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Andrew Jackson, who is his visual effects supervisor, was brought on board early in the process to review how those visual elements could be acheived in the movie practically. From portraying quantum complexities to replicating extraordinary weather conditions of Los Aalmos which was the site of laboratory to develop an atomic bomb.

Oppenheimer is a "tale of great scope and size," continued Nolan, who also said that it is one of the most daunting projects he has ever taken on in terms of scale and facing the range of Oppenheimer's story. There were significant practical and logistical difficulties, as media reports.

Nolan revealed that he has fantastic crew that made the work possible in quite some time. "I am, however, really proud of what my team has accomplished as I see the results come in and as I put the film together," he added. 

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Hoyte van Hoytema, the director of photography for Interstellar, Dunkirk, and Tenet, collaborated once more with Nolan on "Oppenehimer," and the two were successful in convincing IMAX to produce a new sort of movie.

"As soon as Hoyte [van Hoytema, Nolan’s cinematographer since ‘Interstellar’] and I saw the first tests come in, we just knew that this was a format that we were immediately in love with,” director Nolan stated. "Oppenheimer" will debut in theatres on July 21, 2023, according to Universal Pictures.