After making a box-office splash, Oppenheimer sells out even at homes. Christopher Nolan broke records this year with his Cillian Murphy-starrer, shifting the world beneath people’s feet. Released in late July, the movie collected $951 million globally but was unable to hit the billion-dollar mark. Whereas, its competitor which was released on the same day as Oppenheimer, Greta Gerwig’s Barbie grossed over $1.4 billion. Although, if the 4k disc collections of the Nolan-led film are summed now, it might.
News broke out that Univeral Studios is struggling to cope with the public demand for 4k Ultra HD discs of Oppenheimer. The iconic biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer was recently made available for home video and has stirred up fans once again. The discs have been sold out at almost every retailer urging Universal to release an official statement on the DVD crisis.
Oppenheimer has done it again
To Nolan’s surprise, Oppenheimer made a much bigger smash than he’d expected, per Variety. Well, what he also might not have expected was that it would surge DVD sales in the age of digital media. According to The Wrap, Universal Home Video had to make an official statement on the crisis, claiming they are diligently trying to re-stock the film’s discs. The statement read,
“We are happy so many consumers are embracing ‘Oppenheimer’ in 4K Ultra HD and understand that some retailers may currently be out of stock. Universal is working to replenish those retailers quickly so fans can watch the film at home in the best picture quality possible.”
Interestingly, the DVD sellout indicates two things: Oppenheimer is this year’s holiday favorite, and physical media is not dead. An upgrade from Blu-Ray, the 4k Ultra HD discs are the best quality one may enjoy the movie at home.
The craze for Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer was out of bounds this summer, severing multiple records. It became the highest-grossing film based on World War II in addition to perching at the top third position for 2023’s biggest blockbusters, only bested by The Super Mario Bros. and Barbie. Besides that, Oppenheimer was also marked as the highest-grossing biographical film ever, per Screen Rant.
Christopher Nolan facilitated the sell-out
The 53-year-old British director has a reputation with home video sales. 2008’s The Dark Knight pioneered the switch from traditional dimensions to Imax ratio on Blu-Ray. Furthermore, Nolan also suggested that owning physical copies of Oppenheimer could be the only way to safe-keep fans’ collections, since possession of digital media remains highly unreliable even today. He said in an interview with Variety,
Oppenheimer,’ we put a lot of care and attention into the Blu-ray version… and trying to translate the photography and the sound, putting that into the digital realm with a version you can buy and own at home and put on a shelf so no evil streaming service can come steal it from you.”
Nolan formats his films with special efforts for home video release. The same was done for The Dark Knight and it was a success. Likewise, his strategy for Oppenheimer was masked as another hit-for-home video.
