‘The number of nuclear near-misses is staggering’, says House of Dynamite writer
Noah Oppenheim, writer of new Kathryn Bigelow movie House of Dynamite, tells The News Agents of what he discovered about the world’s nuclear situation, and why people are not as worried as they should be right now…
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In brief…
- Noah Oppenheim, former news head at US channel NBC, tells The News Agents about what he learned writing new Netflix nuclear-thriller House of Dynamite.
- He says every expert on nuclear weapons he spoke to shared their amazement that a strike in the western world had never happened, and adds that the threat is as great today as ever.
- Oppenheim adds that due to a politically-polarised society, he no longer believes journalism is the best way to inform people, and considers entertainment a more level playing field.
What’s the story?
Noah Oppenheim, writer of new Kathryn Bigelow-directed movie House of Dynamite, says the danger of a nuclear war has never gone away, but that people no longer talk about it.
The film, which is on Netflix now and stars Rebecca Ferguson, Idris Elba and Gabriel Basso, is about a nuclear missile fired at the US by an unknown threat, and the response within the fictional administration to deal with and counter it.
Speaking to The News Agents, Oppenheim says during research into his script, every expert he spoke to was amazed that something similar had never happened.
"Analysts, government officials, they think it's nothing short of miraculous that it hasn't happened yet," Oppenheim tells Lewis Goodall.
"If you look at the last 80 years of the Nuclear Age, the number of near misses that we've had are pretty staggering.
"People don't dig too deeply into it, but there have been occasions where one person has been all that determined whether the world kept on spinning.
He says the most "salient" of these was the Cuban Missile Crisis, but also highlights the Stanislav Petrov incident, who made a judgement call during a war-game exercise which ensured Russia did not launch missiles at the US.
"No one man should be placed in a position where he can destroy humanity in a matter of minutes," he adds.
How has the film been received?
House of Dynamite has been a hit with the critics, and viewers, but Donald Trump's administration? Not so much.
The Pentagon responded negatively to the movie, circulating a memo claiming some of its details – such as US ground-based missile capability being only 50% effective – are wrong, despite expert evidence to suggest it's correct.
"It's all out there easily to look up," Oppenheim says.
"The Pentagon asserted it has a 100% effective rate based on the last several tests. It's the equivalent of saying, you missed seven penalty kicks in a row, but made the last two, therefore you're 100% effective.
"It was an odd argument for them to make, but we all were just thrilled that they were engaging at all, because that's the point of making a movie like this."
Entertainment vs journalism: How best to inform viewers in 2025?
Oppenheim spent years working leading newsrooms before moving into scriptwriting and the movie industry.
His commitment to journalism remains, however, but he no longer sees the press as the best way to inform the majority of people, or tell an important story.
"If you want to reach people at all ends of the ideological spectrum, sometimes entertainment is the more effective means of shining a spotlight on a topic," he says.
"No matter what your politics are, you might sit down and watch this film, whereas, depending on your politics, you're only consuming certain news sources."
House of Dynamite is available to watch on Netflix now.