Nolan: No computer effects were used for the atomic bomb explosion in Oppenheimer

Last year, after Christopher Nolan announced that he would direct Oppenheimer, a film about the "father of the atomic bomb," some fans joked that Nolan, who always prefers real-life shooting to CG special effects, would really detonate an atomic bomb?

Nolan kept his word. In the recently published "Complete Movie", the British director revealed that no CG special effects were used in the nuclear bomb explosion scene in the film. The film will be released in North America on July 21, 2023.

“I think it was a huge challenge to recreate the Trinity test (the first nuclear bomb explosion in New Mexico) without using computer CG effects. Visual effects supervisor Andrew Jackson came on board very early in the production and we were looking at how to achieve as much practical effects as possible, especially the Trinity test, which involves quantum dynamics and quantum physics. The weather on our set in Los Alamos, New Mexico, was terrible, and there were huge practical challenges.”

Nolan said the film is not just a biopic, but a story of grand scale, the largest film he has ever made. Both the logistics and the realization of the film effects are huge challenges.

"We were trying to tell the story of one person's life, their journey through personal history and larger history. The subjectivity of the story was everything to me, and the film looks at these events through Oppenheimer's eyes, and that was the challenge I gave Cillian to take us on that journey."

“The film was a challenge for cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema, for the art director, for the entire team: How do we tell this extraordinary story through the eyes of the people at its core? All the decisions about how to shoot the film were based on this very real premise.”

The film "Oppenheimer" stars Cillian Murphy, Robert Downey Jr., Amy Lee Blunt, Matt Damon, etc., focusing on Robert Oppenheimer, the "father of the atomic bomb" in the United States, and his role in the development of the first atomic bomb. The script is adapted from the Pulitzer Prize-winning book "American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of Oppenheimer" by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, and is described as "an epic thriller that takes the audience into a thrilling paradox: a mysterious man must risk destroying the world to save the world.