Here’s what we know about Christopher Nolan’s ‘Oppenheimer’
Any film directed by Christopher Nolan is going to be hotly anticipated, but his next project feels particularly special. Oppenheimer is the director’s debut biopic and his first film since 2000’s Memento not to be distributed by Warner Bros., glued together by a cast which feels like the Avengers Assemble of Hollywood acting heavyweights.
Beyond the all-star lineup, Oppenheimer’s subject matter has the scope and weight we’ve come to associate with Nolan’s work. This is the story of theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, who is among those credited as the “father of the atomic bomb” for his role in the Manhattan Project during the Second World War. With Cillian Murphy leading the charge, can this story about mankind’s most devastating creation become a cinematic event to rival his past works?
Latest news
- A gripping trailer for the film has arrived
What is Oppenheimer about?
Just the deadliest weapon in the history of humanity
Based on American Prometheus, a biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, Nolan’s film charts the theoretical physicist’s role in the Manhattan Project. Between 1942 and 1946, during the Second World War, the US led a research and development program to produce the first nuclear weapons.
The project’s foundations were initially formed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1939, in response to fears that scientists working for Adolf Hitler were working on a nuclear weapon of their own. A team, composed of scientists and military officials, were tasked with investigating uranium’s potential as a weapon. This was later named the Office Of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) in 1941.
Following the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, which led to America joining the war effort on the Allies side, this project officially morphed into a military initiative led by Lieutenant General Leslie Groves of the Army Corps Of Engineers.
In 1943, Oppenheimer was appointed as director of the Los Alamos Laboratory in New Mexico where the actual bombs were designed. This complex – also known as Project Y during its creation – was where the first Manhattan Project bombs were built and tested.
The Manhattan Project culminated in the first detonation of a nuclear weapon at the White Sands Proving Ground in New Mexico, as part of the Trinity test, on July 16, 1945. The bombs, designed to end the Second World War, were later used in devastating attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan on August 6 and August 9, 1945 respectively. The two bombs killed over 100,000 people and levelled both cities to the ground.
Two decades later in a TV interview in 1965, Oppenheimer reflected on the Trinity test. “We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed. A few people cried. Most people were silent,” he said.
“I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita: Vishnu is trying to persuade the prince that he should do his duty, and to impress him he takes on his multi-armed form and says, ‘Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds’. I suppose we all felt that, one way or another.”
Oppenheimer died on February 18, 1967, aged 62, following a battle with throat cancer.
Who has been cast in Oppenheimer?
A better question: who hasn’t?
Cillian Murphy, a frequent collaborator with Nolan on films like Batman Begins and Dunkirk, has the lead role of Oppenheimer. He’s joined by Emily Blunt as wife Katherine ‘Kitty’ Oppenheimer, Matt Damon as Army Corps of Engineers overseer Leslie Groves, Robert Downey Jr. as Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Lewis Strauss, and Florence Pugh as Jean Tatlock, a member of the Communist Party in the US who had a romantic relationship with Oppenheimer.
Other confirmed cast members include Benny Safdie as physicist Edward Teller, Josh Hartnett as physicist Ernest Lawrence, Matthew Modine as OSRD leader Vannevar Bush, Dylan Arnold as Robert’s younger brother Frank Oppenheimer and Michael Angarano as Robert Serber.
There’s also a heap with unknown roles, including Rami Malek, Dane DeHaan, Jack Quaid, Olli Haaskivi, Alden Ehrenreich, David Krumholtz, Kenneth Branagh, David Dastmalchian, Jason Clarke, Louise Lombard, Scott Grimes, Christopher Denham, James D’Arcy, David Rysdahl, Guy Burnet, Danny Deferrari, Josh Peck, Harrison Gilbertson, Emma Dumont, Matthias Schweighöfer, Gustaf Skarsgard, Devon Bostick, Alex Wolff, Tony Goldwyn, Trond Fausa Aurvag, Gary Oldman, Josh Zuckerman, Olivia Thirlby and Casey Affleck.
Has a trailer been released?
A gripping look at the forthcoming film has arrived
An initial teaser for Oppenheimer was released in July 2022, followed by the film’s official trailer in December.
The crisp video features footage of Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer, through various stages of developing the atomic bomb. Snippets of the construction and testing of the weapon are interspersed with striking clips of colliding atoms and plumes of fire, while Murphy monologues: “We imagine a future, and our imaginings horrify us.”
“They won’t fear it, until they understand it. And they won’t understand it, until they’ve used it,” he continues, adding ominously, “I don’t know if we can be trusted with such a weapon, but we have no choice.”
A film by Christopher Nolan. In cinemas July 21, 2023. #Oppenheimer pic.twitter.com/4VtH5pUeYv
— Universal Pictures UK (@universaluk) December 14, 2022
What has the cast said about Oppenheimer?
Murphy compared the character to Tommy Shelby
Speaking to the Observer, Murphy explained his fascination with contradictory characters like Oppenheimer and Tommy Shelby from Peaky Blinders.
“I’m interested in the man and what [inventing the atomic bomb] does to the individual,” Murphy said. “The mechanics of it, that’s not really for me – I don’t have the intellectual capability to understand them, but these contradictory characters are fascinating.
“Tommy Shelby’s a complete contradiction, too. People identify with that, because we all walk around with these contradictory ideas coexisting in our heads.”
Why did Christopher Nolan part ways with Warner Bros. for Oppenheimer?
The director wasn’t happy with their release strategy
Nolan’s decision to switch from his longtime collaborators at Warner Bros. to Universal occurred after the director criticised the former’s plans to release their 2021 film slate simultaneously on streaming service HBO Max.
In a statement at the time, Nolan said: “Some of our industry’s biggest filmmakers and most important movie stars went to bed the night before thinking they were working for the greatest movie studio and woke up to find out they were working for the worst streaming service.
“Warner Bros. had an incredible machine for getting a filmmaker’s work out everywhere, both in theatres and in the home, and they are dismantling it as we speak. They don’t even understand what they’re losing. Their decision makes no economic sense, and even the most casual Wall Street investor can see the difference between disruption and dysfunction.”
As such, Oppenheimer marks Nolan’s first film to be distributed by Universal. Until now, every film of the director’s since 2002’s Insomnia has been in collaboration with Warner Bros.
Is there a release date for Oppenheimer?
We have a long wait
As revealed in the teaser trailer above, Oppenheimer is scheduled to be released in cinemas on July 21, 2023.
The post Here’s what we know about Christopher Nolan’s ‘Oppenheimer’ appeared first on NME.
Adam Starkey
NME
