Oppenheimer: New poster unveiled as Christopher Nolan reinvents how IMAX is used yet again

Christopher Nolan is one of the most visually inventive filmmakers in history, so it’s no surprise that his latest, Oppenheimer, pulls out new tricks that simultaneously advance the artform and intend to dazzle audiences.

Part of Oppenheimer is in black and white to match its 1940s setting. However, no black and white film had ever been shot on IMAX, Christopher Nolan’s desired format. And since Nolan isn’t exactly one to step away from challenges, he put Kodak to the task. “We challenged the people at Kodak and Fotokem to make this work for us…And they stepped up. For the first time ever, we were able to shoot IMAX film in black-and-white. And the results were thrilling and extraordinary. As soon as Hoyte [van Hoytema, cinematographer] and I saw the first tests come in, we just knew that this was a format that we were immediately in love with.”

Oppenheimer also utilizes color film, thus marking a return to meshing both color and black and white that Nolan pulled off remarkably on 2000’s Memento. “I’d always been looking for a reason to go back to that. And in the case of Oppenheimer and the way in which we tell this story, it’s very subjectively [told], but also with a more objective story strand that intertwines with that. It was really the perfect time to go back to that device that I loved so much.”

Oppenheimer marks the seventh time Christopher Nolan has used the IMAX format. He first used it with 2008’s The Dark Knight and has used it on every film since. Batman Begins was released in IMAX theaters but did not have any sequences shot on the format. 

In 2008, The Dark Knight became the first major Hollywood production to use IMAX technology. At the time, Nolan said, “We were told it would be too difficult to shoot a Hollywood movie on IMAX when we had this gigantic camera department, grips, electric, hundreds of people working for us. These were cameras that had been to the top of Mount Everest, to the bottom of the ocean and into outer space, but people thought we couldn’t make a feature film. It was absurd.”

Will you be seeing Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer when it hits theaters on July 21st, 2023? How do you think the inventive techniques will go over? Let us know below and check out the movie’s brand-new poster: