Commentary: Would ‘Oppenheimer’ Have Worked As A Miniseries?
by Frank Martin
The theatrical and television landscape is constantly shifting — especially in this day of streaming and epic films. There have been long movies in the past, but filmmakers are growing bolder into stretching their runtimes. It is not uncommon for films to be three hours or more. A great example of this is Oppenheimer. Christopher Nolan is undoubtedly a director with a following and a respected track record. So it wouldn’t be hard for him to sell a studio on making a movie that’s over three hours long that’s basically all talking. But the question should be asked, especially in the age of streaming, whether or not it would make more sense to release the project as a miniseries rather than a film?
Nolan is obviously a filmmaker. He makes works of art meant to be displayed in theaters. So the thought of breaking up one of his movies into a miniseries would be appalling for fans (if not Nolan himself). But it would be at least a worthwhile exercise to examine the pros and cons of making that happen. First off, the film itself is broken up into three long acts. So right off the bat, it has the natural pacing for a miniseries. Also, a miniseries is a different kind of experience. Many potential viewers were turned off by the long runtime. Releasing the story as a miniseries would allow those people to plan their experience with more flexibility.
However, there are plenty of cons to making a miniseries. This goes doubly true for Oppenheimer. Sure, the movie had a lot of talking, which would have been fine experiencing at home on a couch. But it was also an audio and visual extravaganza. Nolan chose to film the movie in IMAX for a reason. Having the bombastic sensory overload that Oppenheimer intended would be lost when viewing it over three sittings. But overall, releasing the film in three parts, or even planning to watch it in three parts, wouldn’t necessarily ruin the overall experience. If anything, that would make it more digestible — just not in the way Nolan intended.
