Christopher Nolan Takes ‘Oppenheimer’ On China Tour; First Major Hollywood Filmmaker To Visit Market Since Start Of Pandemic

deadline.com:

Time was, Hollywood filmmakers would regularly travel to China in support of their movies, attending premieres and holding Q&As to drum up buzz in the massive box office market.

The pandemic halted that ritual — until this week when Christopher Nolan became the first major Hollywood filmmaker since Covid to stroll a red carpet in China as his Oppenheimer was premiered at Universal Studios’ CityWalk IMAX theater in Beijing, followed by a stop in Shanghai for more screenings and fan interaction.

Such was the event that the day after the Beijing premiere, the state-backed Global Times gushed that Nolan “set hearts racing … as he became the first prominent figure from the Hollywood film industry to visit Hollywood’s largest overseas market, the Chinese mainland, after the pandemic.” (It’s worth noting that Ben Wheatley was also recently in China for the unveiling of Warner Bros’ Meg 2: The Trench, which is a Chinese coproduction.) From the Oppenheimer Beijing show, video on Weibo saw fans “clutching posters” featuring Nolan’s previous works like Inception, Interstellar and Tenet, the Global Times reported.

The premiere also ignited discussions on social media, with Weibo trending topics including #Oppenheimer, #OppenheimerChinaPremiere, #NolanSigningPostersForFans.