Christopher Nolan finally won the Oscar for Best Director for the megahit Oppenheimer–which won seven awards including Best Picture–but it also helped bring Nolan his biggest payday as a filmmaker. It’s a first-time feat for the director, who didn’t even profit as much from his Dark Knight trilogy.
While a representative for the filmmaker didn’t respond to a request for comment, Variety is reporting that with his initial director fee added to this role as a producer and the Oscar wins, Nolan received about $100 million for the feature. Most of that came from the backend, including the box office escalation fees.
Oppenheimer was released last summer, made for $100 million, becoming half of the Barbenheimer tag team, eventually earning $958 million at the global box office. Not bad considering the staggering run time and R-rating, usually a death knell for summer features and reserved for the holidays right before Oscar season.
Those box office numbers also break a 20-year record as Oppenheimer became the highest-grossing Best Picture winner since 2004’s The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King ($1.14 billion, not adjusted for inflation). Oppenheimer is being rereleased in 1,000 theaters this weekend with its shiny new Best Picture status and could break that $1 billion barrier–adding more to Nolan’s final tally.
