Following the 2020 release of Tenet, Christopher Nolan is back at it making another massive film called Oppenheimer. As of late, the filmmaker has been assembling a huge cast to tell a story about the “father of the atomic bomb” J. Robert Oppenheimer. The upcoming movie will star his frequent collaborator Cillian Murphy as the theoretical physicist, and now we have a first look at the Peaky Blinders actor as Nolan’s latest lead.
On a palindrome of a day, on this Tuesday 2/22/2022, Universal Pictures and Christopher Nolan’s production company Syncopy announced that Oppenheimer has started production, via Variety. The studio also released a first look at Cillian Murphy in character. Check it out:
Cillian Murphy, who has worked with Christopher Nolan on a number of films in the past (including the Dark Knight trilogy, Inception and Dunkirk) embodies J. Robert Oppenheimer in a black and white photo that features him looking straight into the camera whilst wearing a hat whilst smoking a cigarette.
Considering the physicist was a chain smoker who later suffered from throat cancer, it’s an accurate portrait of Oppenheimer for Nolan’s take on the historical figure. Nolan will base the “father of the atomic bomb” after the Pulitzer Prize-winning book American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer.
Christopher Nolan’s Tenet follow-up movie started coming together this past September, with the filmmaker working with Universal Pictures rather than Warner Bros, the studio he had been working exclusively with for the past 20 years. The shift undeniably has to do with Warner Bros’ decision to prioritize its streaming service HBO Max in 2021. WB decided to release all of last year’s movies in theaters and streaming on the same day for those with an HBOMax subscription, leading to some choice public words from Nolan.
Given Christopher Nolan’s track record, this photo could very well be the only teaser for Oppenheimer for some time, unless there are more character photos on the way. When he got going on Tenet, for a long time a simple graphic of the logo was all we had to go on. It’s certainly no mistake the announcement was made today on 2/22/22, considering how much Nolan likes his palindromes.
Aside from Cillian Murphy taking the lead in Oppenheimer, he’ll work alongside Emily Blunt once again after the pair were just co-stars on A Quiet Place Part II. Also among the cast is Robert Downey Jr, Matt Damon, Florence Pugh, Benny Safdie, Rami Malek, Dane DeHaan, Jack Quaid, Alden Ehrenreich and Kenneth Branagh, among others.
Oppenheimer is set to film all over the U.S., in locations including New Mexico, California and New Jersey against a $100 million budget production. The movie has a release date set for July 21, 2023.
