Christopher Nolan cuts shooting days for ‘Oppenheimer’ in order to save money on the set and exterior budget. It is noted that it was originally planned to be shot within 85 days.

“It felt like we were shooting a $100 million independent production” said “Oppenheimer” production designer Ruth de Jong (on the “Team Deakins” podcast. “Chris wanted filming to take place across the US…not to mention the construction of Los Alamos, which didn’t exist. At this point I really felt that it was impossible to make the film».

And it continues: “Then Chris said, “Forget the money. Let’s design what we want.” And that’s exactly what we did and during the first study of my city’s budget it was 20 million dollars. Chris said, “Yeah, no. Stop.” We had this huge white model and I started pulling buildings out of it, not to mention we wanted to shoot in New York, New Jersey, Berkeley, Los Angeles and New Mexico».

When executive producer Thomas Haislip told her they wouldn’t be able to shoot in Berkeley, she replied: “But we have to go to Berkeley. This is Oppenheimer!».

“The producers were asking me what I could do to shrink[τον προϋπολογισμό]. Then Tom came into the office and said, ‘Chris is going to shoot it in 55 days’.” noted features and added. “There was a lot of money saved. At this point I felt I should do something more, because he just went and gave his days. He, more than anyone else, knows what he wants to do each day and how to do it and cut it from 85 days to 55 days».