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The latest Christopher Nolan film has been a worldwide hit.
The biopic is about J. Robert Oppenheimer (played by Cillian Murphy), the man who was pivotal in being one of the scientists behind the first-ever atomic bomb – often credited as the ‘father of the atomic bomb’.
Since releasing in cinemas on July 21, it has scored a 94% on Rotten Tomatoes while grossing $174 million at the box office – which is impressive numbers for an R-rated historical thriller.
Despite its commercial and critical success, Oppenheimer hasn’t been shown in Japan.
Watch the trailer for Oppenheimer below…
The film tackles the sensitive issue of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan – which happened in August 1945.
Sadly, the aerial bombings together killed between 129,000 and 226,000 people, with most casualties being civilians.
To this day, this is the only use of nuclear weapons in an armed conflict.
While the movie has been a worldwide hit, Oppenheimer has yet to be screened in Japan, nor has a release date been announced.
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This has led to many theorising that the country is refusing to show the film.
However, this has been debunked by Universal – the studio behind the movie.
A spokesperson for the studio tells Variety that plans ‘have not been finalised in all markets’.
The decision on whether Oppenheimer will play in Japan comes down to Toho-Towa, the country’s biggest distributor of Hollywood films.
According to Variety, the company has yet to screen the movie but is expected to do so in the near future.
Whether Nolan’s latest movie will be a success in the Japanese market will be a different story as American films that are set during World War II have received mixed results.
The 2013 film The Wolverine includes a sequence that shows the titular hero during the Nagasaki bombings.
The movie, however, only grossed $7.9 million from the Japanese market – which is usually recognised as one of the biggest revenue sources for Hollywood films.
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However, Clint Eastwood’s companion films Letters from Iwo Jima and Flags of Our Fathers – which showed the battle from the views of Japanese and US soldiers – performed moderately well at the box office with a combined gross of $56 million.
Sources close to Oppenheimer aren’t worried about the movie underperforming in Japan as it is a talky R-rated drama that is largely set in laboratories and the halls of the American government, not the battlefield, as per Variety.
Watch Cillian Murphy and Florence Pugh sit down exclusively with IGV Presents here.
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