Every­thing we know about Christo­pher Nolan’s Oppenheimer

There are two ways to see the box office results for Christo­pher Nolan​’s last out­ing, 2020’s Tenet. Some might say that the $363 mil­lion grossed glob­al­ly was dis­ap­point­ing, giv­en the scope of the project and the names behind it.

Indus­try experts have esti­mat­ed that the film would have made an addi­tion­al 50 mil­lion by abid­ing to Warn­er Bros’ demands that all of their titles released dur­ing the pan­dem­ic be simul­ta­ne­ous­ly avail­able on sis­ter plat­form HBO as well, which Nolan cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly refused, lead­ing in his depar­ture from his self declared ​“home stu­dio” for the past two decades.

But oth­ers might argue that being the first film to hit the­atres in the mid­dle of a glob­al pan­dem­ic, 363 mil­lion is actu­al­ly a very promis­ing num­ber. One that didn’t scare Hol­ly­wood away, judg­ing by the num­ber of A‑listers who have joined the cast of Nolan’s sec­ond wartime epic, Oppenheimer.

Adapt­ed from Pulitzer Prize-win­ning book ​‘Amer­i­can Prometheus: The Tri­umph and Tragedy of J Robert Oppen­heimer’ by Kai Bird and Mar­tin J Sher­win, the film will see Cil­lian Mur­phy put on Oppenheimer’s fedo­ra in his sixth col­lab­o­ra­tion with the British writer/​director.

The title char­ac­ter was an Amer­i­can the­o­ret­i­cal physi­cist whose work on the Man­hat­tan Project led to the cre­ation of the atom­ic bomb. Uni­ver­sal, who have financed the project to the tune of $100 mil­lion, described the sto­ry as an ​“epic thriller that thrusts audi­ences into the pulse-pound­ing para­dox of the enig­mat­ic man who must risk destroy­ing the world in order to save it.”

Mur­phy will be joined by a stel­lar cast of reg­u­lars and new­com­ers to the Nolan sta­ble. Lots of them. Ken­neth Branagh, Matthew Modine, David Dast­malchi­an and James D’Arcy have all pre­vi­ous­ly worked with the direc­tor, but (inhale) Emi­ly Blunt, Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr, Flo­rence Pugh, Ben­ny Safdie, Rami Malek, Michael Angara­no, Alden Ehren­re­ich, Guy Bur­nett, Dan­ny Defer­rari, Dane DeHaan, Jack Quaid, Dylan Arnold, David Krumholtz, Olli Haask­ivi, Jason Clarke, Louise Lom­bard, David Rys­dahl, Josh Peck (exhale) have not. And while Josh Har­nett could have been his Bruce Wayne, Oppen­heimer will mark his first appear­ance in a Nolan film as well. Wel­come to the club!

The ensem­ble cast will accom­pa­ny Mur­phy in his por­tray­al of the famed sci­en­tist, who was exiled for his left-wing views under a cloud of strict FBI sur­veil­lance. His per­son­al life was far from smooth, between his tumul­tuous rela­tion­ships with rad­i­cal fig­ures Jean Tat­lock and Kit­ty Puen­ing and his involve­ment with the Com­mu­nist Par­ty, so there is no doubt Nolan will be able to draw from those aspects as well to enrich his script.

With a war under­way between Rus­sia and Ukraine, the shad­ow of Putin’s nuclear pow­er dan­gling above East­ern Euro­pean bor­ders, the mak­ing of Oppen­heimer sad­ly couldn’t be more time­ly. Nolan’s first biopic, a pas­sion project for the direc­tor accord­ing to his long­time pro­duc­er, will begin pro­duc­tion in a glob­al cli­mate of uncer­tain­ty tint­ed with atom­ic men­ace. Is it a top­ic that will prove enlight­en­ing to audi­ences, or one that has to be avoid­ed, espe­cial­ly as a biopic whose title character’s life can be accessed in a cou­ple clicks online?

Mur­phy brush­es off those con­cerns, backed by his trust in his direc­tor. ​“The dif­fer­ence with this one is the sto­ry is there, every­body knows what hap­pened. But Chris is telling it in a dif­fer­ent way, as with Chris you would expect. He’s got a trick up his sleeve.”

Besides, the film might be more of a char­ac­ter study than a love let­ter to the mechan­ics of atom­ic physics. ​“I’m inter­est­ed in the man and what [invent­ing the atom­ic bomb] does to the indi­vid­ual,” Mur­phy has said. ​“The mechan­ics of it… I don’t have the intel­lec­tu­al capa­bil­i­ty to under­stand them, but these con­tra­dic­to­ry char­ac­ters are fascinating.”

Nolan will direct from his own script, with long­time col­lab­o­ra­tor and wife Emma Thomas pro­duc­ing along­side Charles Roven. Hoyte van Hoytema returns as DoP, Jen­nifer Lame as edi­tor, and Lud­wig Görans­son as com­pos­er. Oppen­heimer will be the first Christo­pher Nolan film since 2002’s Insom­nia not to be dis­trib­uted by Warn­er Bros. Shoot­ing began in New Mex­i­co late Feb­ru­ary, with a release date ten­ta­tive­ly slat­ed for 21 July, 2023.