From the looks of this first poster, Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer promises to be a box office blast.
Nolan’s biopic of J. Robert Oppenheimer has a giant ball of fire in the background as a figure of one of the fathers of the atomic bomb, played by Cillian Murphy, is foregrounded beneath the tag line: “The World Forever Changes.”
The Universal feature has an ensemble cast that includes Kenneth Branagh, Michael Angarano, Robert Downey Jr., Matt Damon, Emily Blunt, Florence Pugh, Rami Malek, Benny Safdie, Josh Hartnett, Dane DeHaan, Jack Quaid and Matthew Modine.
Oppenheimer
Courtesy of Universal
Murphy will portray Oppenheimer, who helped developed the A-bomb during the Second World War, only later to have his loyalty to the United States questioned by hawkish government officials.
Oppenheimer is based on the 2005 Pulitzer Prize-winning book American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and the late Martin J. Sherwin. Universal won a bidding war for the project, Nolan’s first movie in years not made with his longtime studio home, Warner Bros.
The poster notes Oppenheimer was shot on Imax 65mm and 65mm large-format film, with Nolan having recruited director of photography Hoyte van Hoytema, who worked with him on Tenet, Dunkirk and Interstellar, and editor Jennifer Lame and composer Ludwig Göransson, who both also worked on Tenet.
Universal has set a North American theatrical release date of July 21, 2023. A release during the summer month has long been a Nolan tradition.