James Cameron calls Christopher Nolan’s ‘Oppenheimer’ a ‘moral cop out’

James Cameron has signed on to make a film adaptation based on the upcoming book, Ghosts of Hiroshima, and isn’t afraid to spell out how his project will differ from Christopher Nolan’s depiction of the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Oppenheimer.

According to the book’s official synopsis, Charles Pellegrino’s Ghosts of Hiroshima combines years of forensic archaeology with interviews of more than two hundred survivors and their families to give readers a “you-are-there account” of ordinary human beings thrust into extraordinary events, during which our modern civilization entered its most challenging phase — a nuclear adolescence that, unless we are very wise and learn from our past, we may not survive.

The book drops on Aug. 5 from Blackstone Publishing and The Story Factory, timed to the 80th anniversary of the moment the world entered the perilous nuclear age.

While discussing his plans for the film adaptation of the film, Cameron told Deadline that he plans to take a markedly different approach to Nolan’s “moral cop out” with the award-winning Oppenheimer.

“It’s interesting what he stayed away from,” Cameron said when asked if he was surprised by Oppenheimer‘s seven Oscars and nearly $1 billion at the box office. “I love the filmmaking, but I did feel that it was a bit of a moral cop out. Because it’s not like Oppenheimer didn’t know the effects.”

He went on, “He’s got one brief scene in the film where we see — and I don’t like to criticize another filmmaker’s film — but there’s only one brief moment where he sees some charred bodies in the audience and then the film goes on to show how it deeply moved him. But I felt that it dodged the subject.”

The Oppenheimer scene in question is where Cillian Murphy’s titular physicist watches a slideshow presentation of the casualties — and the character’s resulting nightmares about similar things happening to people he knows (one of whom is played by Nolan’s own daughter). 

Cameron indicated he doesn’t know whether it was Nolan’s decision not to show the effects on Hiroshima and Nagasaki when J. Robert Oppenheimer’s bombs were dropped on them, or if it was the studio’s, but the Avatar: Fire and Ash filmmaker won’t avoid the horrific reality with his production.

“I don’t know whether the studio or Chris felt that that was a third rail that they didn’t want to touch, but I want to go straight at the third rail,” he asserted. “I’m just stupid that way.”

When it comes to telling the victims’ stories, Cameron said, “Okay, I’ll put up my hand. I’ll do it, Chris. No problem. You come to my premiere and say nice things.” 

Cameron isn’t the first critic to raise that particular issue with Oppenheimer; Spike Lee, to name one critic, has said, “If it’s three hours, I would like to add some more minutes about what happened to the Japanese people. People got vaporized. Many years later, people are radioactive.”

Want more movie news? Sign up for Entertainment Weekly‘s free newsletter to get the latest trailers, celebrity interviews, film reviews, and more.

Nolan addressed the criticism during a cover story for Variety in 2023.

“The film presents Oppenheimer’s experience subjectively,” Nolan said. “It was always my intention to rigidly stick to that. Oppenheimer heard about the bombing at the same time that the rest of the world did. I wanted to show somebody who is starting to gain a clearer picture of the unintended consequences of his actions. It was as much about what I don’t show as what I show.”

As for Cameron’s intentions, he is clear about his plans for Ghosts of Hiroshima.

“I don’t want to get into the politics of, should it have been dropped, should they have done it, and all the bad things Japan did to warrant it, or any of that kind of moralizing and politicizing,” Cameron explained. “I just want to deal in a sense with what happened, almost as if you could somehow be there and survive and see it.”

It’s a lesson that Cameron said he believes the word needs to learn now more than ever.

“I just think it’s so important right now for people to remember what these weapons do. This is the only case where they’ve been used against a human target,” he added. “I want to make a film that just reminds people what these weapons do to people, and how absolutely unacceptable it is to even contemplate using them.”