LOS ANGELES: Ever since the announcement of 'Oppenheimer', Christopher Nolan has made it clear that he has zero interest in using CGI for the biopic, instead using practical effects for everything. With that in mind, 'Oppenheimer' will have absolutely no CGI.
The director is known for his penchant for realism and complex stories, but for his latest film, 'The Dark Knight' creator has insisted on keeping things as real as possible. Speaking with Collider, Nolan said that his latest film not only has a focus on practicality, but it contains "zero" CGI shots.
However, this is nothing new as Nolan has preferred to rely as little as he can on VFX on almost all his ventures be it 'The Dark Knight' trilogy, 'Interstellar' or 'Tenet'.
Instead Nolan has always preferred using things such as camera work, real small-scale explosions and miniature sets to avoid having his work feel wholly unrealistic, employing VFX only when necessary and that too for enhancing the visual aesthetic of certain scenes.
But recreating a nuclear explosion, its immense radiation, the intricacies of the explosion along with other aspects such as the aesthetics of a black hole is no mean feat, but Nolan and his team managed to pull it off without any CGI.
Based on the life of nuclear physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer who is widely regarded as the 'Father of the nuclear bomb', the film adapts the Pulitzer Prize-winning book American Prometheus by Kai Bird and the late Martin J. Sherwin.
With a particular focus on the Trinity Test and the Manhattan Project which led to creation of the atom bomb, the movie also showcases the race against time of the Americans to finish building their bomb before Nazi Germany can complete theirs.
'Oppenheimer' stars Cillian Murphy, Matt Damon, Emily Blunt, Robert Downey Jr., Florence Pugh Jack Quaid, Benny Safdie, Rami Malek, Dane DeHaan, Josh Hartnett, Matthew Modine, Kenneth Branagh, David Krumholtz, Michael Angarano, and Alden Ehrenreich and will hit theatres on July 21, 2023.