Aside from J. Robert Oppenheimer's life story, Christopher Nolan brainstormed "Oppenheimer" with the help of one of the hit songs by Sting.
Released on Friday, Nolan's R-rated historical film "Oppenheimer" already recorded a whopping $80.5 million in its opening weekend despite going head-to-head with Greta Gerwig's "Barbie." Amid the film's continuous success, its filmmaker disclosed further details about creating the movie and how a rock song inspired him to do it.
How "Oppenheimer" Is Related to Sting's Song
Following the arrival of "Oppenheimer" on the big screens, Nolan opened up about his new biographical epic in an interview with Entertainment Weekly for the news outlets' "Around the Table" segment. Elsewhere in the discussion, the director disclosed that Sting's song, "Russians," has a massive connection to Oppenheimer.
According to Nolan, he was a kid when he first learned about the father of the atomic bomb and the renowned American theoretical physicist. He also recalled listening to the hit rock song which is about Oppenheimer's "deadly toys."
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"I was growing up in the U.K. at a time when people were very concerned about nuclear armaments," he said. "When I was 12 or 13, my friends and I were absolutely convinced that we were going to experience a nuclear war at some point in our lives."
Oppenheimer and his life story stuck with the director in the years thereafter, causing him to learn more about the physicist and the Manhattan Project, a top-secret program that aimed to make the first atomic bombs amid World War II during the 1940s.
Sting's "Russians" Meaning
Sting, on the other hand, also became fond of Oppenheimer's role in the top-secret project that he revealed in a 2010 interview during which he explained the story behind the song from his 1985 solo debut, "The Dream of the Blue Turtles."
The former Police frontman said that the anti-war song also touched on the tensions between America and the Soviet Union before the fall of the Berlin Wall a few years later. Prior to the release of Nolan's film, the musician re-proposed the same track through an Instagram post amid Russo-Ukraine War.
"I've only rarely sung this song in the many years since it was written, because I never thought it would be relevant again," he captioned the post. "But, in the light of one man's bloody and woefully misguided decision to invade a peaceful, unthreatening neighbor, the song is, once again, a plea for our common humanity."
Nolan's "Oppenheimer" is based on the award winning book, "American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer," by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin.
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