Oppenheimer is one of the most hotly discussed film releases of the year, especially when compared to the release of Barbie, with the two films standing in stark contrast to one another as they both head for box office domination. But there is one country where Oppenheimer may fall short, and there is a reason tangled in history and pain for that.
Currently, Japan has no release date for Christopher Nolan’s film about the creation of the atomic bomb. Japan is the only country in which atomic bombs have been used as a part of warfare, with two dropped in 1945, one on Hiroshima on Aug. 6 and the next a few days later on Nagasaki on Aug. 9. The result was over 200,000 civilians dead and thousands more displaced and suffering from the long-term effects of radiation poisoning.
These two devastating bombs dealt the last blow to end WWII, but their destruction was catastrophic, bringing Japan to its knees and forcing an unconditional surrender. You can see why a movie about the creation of such weapons of mass destruction has a different impact on this country. The absence of a release date for the film in Japanese theaters is attributed to various reasons, including their own history with the subject matter and the workings of the movie industry here.
Why does it not have a release date in Japan?
Western movies, particularly the big blockbuster crowd pleasers like Marvel films or Disney animations, frequently dominate the lineup in Japanese theaters, while foreign films often face challenges in securing screenings here. It is likely that, even with its subject matter, Oppenheimer will gain a release; the question is more about when.
As reported in Variety, Universal stated that “plans have not been finalized in all markets,” which could mean that they are simply still organizing when to release the film. They may feel that the U.S. release date is too close to the anniversary of those devastating days and may be holding off to wait until some time has passed before releasing here out of respect. As of last week, Toho-Towa, the distributor responsible for handling most Hollywood films in the country, had not yet screened the film.
Many Western films get slightly later release dates in Japan as it is, with Barbie not premiering until August 11 a full three weeks after its release in the States, so this could simply be the case as well. Hollywood has some influence in when their films are released here, but at the end of the day, Japan has the final say, as they have their own structure for releasing films, and it can sometimes be months behind release dates in their domestic country with release dates also taking some time to be announced.
Do Japanese theatergoers turn up for WWII movies?
There is another duality at play here as well. Nolan films do well in Japan, with Tenet and Dunkirk earning $25 million and $14.8 million in the country, respectively, but Western films surrounding the topic of the bombings don’t tend to bring out the crowds.
Hugh Jackman’s The Wolverine, set in Japan and featured a short sequence that showed the bombing, fell a little flat here with only $7.9 million grossed. The Clint Eastwood war film Letters from Iwo Jima, a Japanese language film with a Japanese cast and told from the Japanese perspective, did much better than the film Flags of Our Fathers, which told the same story from the American stance. So even if Oppenheimer is released here, the box-office takings may not be great, especially since it has also been rated R.
Of course, this makes sense. Japanese audiences will want to watch a film in their own language told from their own people’s perspective, so given that Oppenheimer is from the American view, they may not be as interested. That being said, reportedly, Pearl Harbor actually did quite well in the Japanese market, with Japanese critics being kinder to it than domestic critics.
Nolan believes that the story is an important one, though, saying at CinemaCon, “Like it or not, J. Robert Oppenheimer is the most important person who ever lived. He made the world that we live in for better or for worse. His story has to be seen to be believed.”
You can watch Oppenheimer in theatres in the States from July 21. However, for those like myself living here in Japan, the release date, if there even is one, is still unknown.