Oppenheimer Follows Keanu Reeves' Constantine Footsteps In a Surprising But Perfect Way
There is a much appreciated scene in Constantine that is related to Christopher Nolan's new movie.
Oppenheimer is one of the most anticipated movies of the summer of 2023. The plot of the movie will take place during the Second World War and will focus on Robert Oppenheimer and his role in the development of the atomic bomb.
And this is what the main theme of the movie has to do with Constantine, which was released 18 years ago.
Constantine is not just a good movie, it is one of Keanu Reeves ' best films. In 18 years since its release, Constantine has achieved cult status, but it wasn't always that way.
Fans of the Hellblazer comics were unhappy with the differences between the movie’s plot and the original, and the film made $230 million at the box office – not much on a budget of $100 million.
However, there was one scene that delighted viewers even then – and that was the scene in Hell.
Many movies have tried to reproduce Hell in different ways, but its representation in Constantine can be called one of the most successful. And all because Hell there looks like ... the world after a nuclear explosion. Film director Francis Lawrence explained how this effect was created:
“We started to look at the nuclear test films from the 1940s of the nuclear blasts […]. So we decided that it was kind of an eternal nuclear blast except nothing ever really gets obliterated because it’s eternal and it’s constantly going.”
Christopher Nolan 's Oppenheimer will feature the first test of an American nuclear weapon. The explosion during the Trinity test was filmed, according to the director himself, without the use of CGI.
Scott R. Fisher, Oppenheimer's special effects supervisor, recently explained how he managed to make the real explosion:
“We call them big-atures. We do them as big as we possibly can, but we do reduce the scale so it’s manageable. […] It’s mostly gasoline, propane, any of that kind of stuff, because you get so much bang for your buck. […] We really wanted everyone to talk about that flash, that brightness. So we tried to replicate that as much as we could.”
According to Nolan, recreating Trinity was the biggest challenge the crew faced while working on Oppenheimer.
Both Constantine and Oppenheimer approached the demonstration of a nuclear explosion from different but original angles.
The fact that, according to the Constantine's director, Hell looks like a world after a nuclear explosion seems frighteningly logical. And how Nolan's nuclear explosion actually turned out without the use of CGI, the viewers will soon see in theaters – Oppenheimer will be released on the 21st of July.
Sources: IMDb, Slash Film