Christopher Nolan’s upcoming epic thriller Oppenheimer is making a lot of noise for the right reasons. From its enigmatic titular character, cinematic appeal, and illustrious star cast to the anticipation of seeing a historical depiction from Nolan’s lens, fans have plenty of reasons to be excited for July 2023. Now, that anticipation is further fueled as new details are trickling down about the project. In a new poster released by the studio, we see Cillian Murphy in character, wearing protective glasses and looking at an explosion, signaling the fateful moment that changed the world forever.
The film is based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning book American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and the late Martin J. Sherwin. It is billed 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.” The story of scientist J.R. Oppenheimer isn’t an easy one to tell, his invention changed the world creating a lot of controversies — he once quoted Bhagavat Gita, saying, “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” As interesting as the subject is, Nolan recently admitted that Oppenheimer has turned out to be “one of the most challenging projects” of his career, while his credits already include complex features like Momento, Tenet, Inception, Interstellar among others.
As is the tradition in Nolan movies, the upcoming feature is shot on IMAX, interestingly in black and white, which means the director put together all the brains with frequent collaborator and cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema to make it possible. Since the story of Oppenheimer sprawls through a decade of the titular scientist’s life the director revealed, “the way in which we tell this story, it’s very subjectively told, but also with a more objective story strand that intertwines with that. It was really the perfect time to go back to that device that I loved so much.”
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The film stars Murphy in titular scientist as J. Robert Oppenheimer, Emily Blunt as his wife, biologist and botanist Katherine “Kitty” Oppenheimer, Matt Damon as General Leslie Groves Jr., director of the Manhattan Project, and Robert Downey, Jr. as Lewis Strauss, a founding commissioner of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. Adding to the illustrious cast are Florence Pugh as psychiatrist Jean Tatlock, Benny Safdie as theoretical physicist Edward Teller, Michael Angarano as Robert Serber, Josh Hartnett as American nuclear scientist Ernest Lawrence, along with Rami Malek and Kenneth Branagh.
Oppenheimer debuts in theaters on July 21, 2023. You can check out the new poster below:
