Oppenheimer, a biopic featuring Cillian Murphy as J Robert Oppenheimer, is a frontrunner at this year’s Academy Awards with 13 Oscar nominations. The film is expected to walk away with majority honours and the director, Christopher Nolan has chances of winning his first Best Director Oscar. Despite clashing with Barbie, the biopic dominated the box office and ranked among the highest-grossing movies in 2023.
Interestingly, Nolan, who parted ways with Warner Bros and joined Universal, negotiated a unique deal that grants him a share of the film’s revenue from the beginning, even before the studio retrieves its costs.
According to Forbes, Nolan’s salary is a whopping $72 million from Oppenheimer, including box office earnings, home video sales and initial streaming rights.
In a surprising turn, while the estimates suggest he earned $72 million before taxes, this figure is expected to grow as the film secures new streaming deals and other licensing agreements. Every movie produced by Nolan has crossed at least the $100 million mark at the box office and six of his last seven films have surpassed the $500 million mark. Even Robert Pattinson starrer Tenet, released during the pandemic, made $350 million globally.
A Hollywood talent manager told the portal, “He’s the biggest movie star in the world right now.” Christopher Nolan earlier made a bold move by parting ways with Warner Bros after the studio announced that they’ll be releasing all theatrical films on their streaming service HBO Max same day.
Disappointed by their decision Nolan told The Hollywood Reporter, “Some of our industry’s biggest filmmakers and most important movie stars went to bed the night before thinking they were working for the greatest movie studio and woke up to find out they were working for the worst streaming service. They don’t even understand what they’re losing. Their decision makes no economic sense, and even the most casual Wall Street investor can see the difference between disruption and dysfunction.”
Christopher Nolan’s agreement with Universal reportedly involved a 15% share of the movie’s earnings, slightly less than the 20% he initially demanded. This difference might be due to the involvement of Emma Thomas, Nolan’s wife. To align with the proposed budget, Nolan likely had to lower his guaranteed fees for directing, writing and producing. This agreement shows Nolan’s confidence in his movie, as he essentially bet on himself by accepting a deal.
Oppenheimer, featuring Cillian Murphy earned almost $1 billion at the global box office, while the movie was made on a production budget of $100 million.
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