Oppenheimer is an upcoming biographical film written and directed by Christopher Nolan, based on the 2005 book American Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin. The film stars Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer, an American theoretical physicist credited with being the "father of the atomic bomb" for his role in the Manhattan Project—the World War II undertaking that developed the first nuclear weapons, with a supporting ensemble cast that includes Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr., Florence Pugh, Rami Malek, Benny Safdie, Michael Angarano, Josh Hartnett and Kenneth Branagh. It is a co-production between Universal Pictures, Syncopy Inc. and Atlas Entertainment, with Nolan producing the film alongside Emma Thomas and Charles Roven.
Nolan was announced to write and direct a biographical film about J. Robert Oppenheimer, set during World War II, with Universal Pictures being chosen as the distributor in September 2021. Much of the main cast signed on between September 2021 and April 2022. Pre-production was underway by January 2022, with filming beginning in late February 2022 and wrapped that May. It is filmed in a combination of IMAX 65mm and 65mm large-format film—including, for the first time, sections in IMAX black-and-white analog photography. Like his previous works, Nolan extensively used practical effects and minimal computer-generated imagery.
Oppenheimer is scheduled to be released in the United Kingdom and United States on July 21, 2023, by Universal Pictures. It is Nolan's first film not to be distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures domestically or internationally since Memento (2000).
The film follows the life of theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, the director of the Los Alamos Laboratory during the Manhattan Project in World War II, and his contributions that led to the creation of the atomic bomb.
Christoper Nolan is working to ensure that his newest film Oppenheimer is so accurate that even the extras are real-world brilliant scientists.
Even the extras have a story in Christopher Nolan's upcoming film Oppenheimer. Based on American Prometheus by authors Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, Oppenheimer follows the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy), the man known as the "Father of the Atomic Bomb". The film walks through the development of the first nuclear weapons through the developments at Project Manhattan during World War II.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Nolan explained that he made sure certain extras cast in Oppenheimer were real-world scientists with a firm understanding of nuclear weapons. While Murphy was desperate to play the lead for Nolan, he was gearing up to play a nuclear physicist without much experience in science. Thankfully, he had those experts around him who were more than happy to offer in-depth speeches about nuclear arms. Check out Nolan's quote below:
"I was thinking that it even applied to the extras. We were in the real Los Alamos and we had a lot of real scientists as extras. We needed the crowd of extras to give reactions, and improvise, and we were getting sort of impromptu, very educated speeches. It was really fun to listen to. You've been on sets where you've got a lot of extras around and they're more or less thinking about lunch. These guys were thinking about the geopolitical implications of nuclear arms and knew a lot about it. It actually was a great reminder every day of: We have to be really on our game, we have to be faithful to the history here, and really know what we're up to."
