A first-look photo featuring Cillian Murphy as J Robert Oppenheimer in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer is blowing up online. This official still came just as Deadline reported that Nolan regular Kenneth Branagh is also joining the all-star cast of this potential epic. Oppenheimer stars Murphy as the theoretical physicist who helped to develop the A-bomb during World War II. With a cigarette dangling from his lips, Murphy appears to be dressed in a bespoke suit and fedora. The actor looks to have lost a bit of weight for the role, making him look like the spitting image of the father of the Atom Bomb. It’s both uncanny and creepy.
Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer movie will be the filmmaker’s first directorial effort since 2020’s Tenet. 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. In addition to directing the feature, Nolan will also write the script and produce alongside Emma Thomas and Atlas Entertainment’s Charles Roven. Oppenheimer will detonate in theaters on July 23, 2023, roughly two weeks before the anniversary of the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima.
Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer movie starring Cillian Murphy has been described as an “epic thriller that thrusts audiences into the pulse-pounding paradox of the enigmatic man who must risk destroying the world to save it.” As for the rest of the cast, Florence Pugh will play Jean Tatlock, “a member of the Communist Party of the United States who has an off-and-on affair with Oppenheimer and was the cause of major security concerns for government officials” and Benny Safdie will play Edward Teller, “the Hungarian physicist who is known as the father of the hydrogen bomb and a member of the Manhattan Project, the U.S. research initiative that developed the first atomic bomb.” Rami Malek will play a fellow scientist, with Emily Blunt playing Oppenheimer’s Wife, Katherine; Matt Damon playing Lt. Gen. Leslie Groves, director of the Manhattan Project; and Robert Downey Jr. playing Lewis Strauss, the chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission.
What do you think of Cillian Murphy’s look as Oppenheimer? I’ve been feeling blown away by the cast of this film for months, and now they’re adding Branagh to the mix? Outrageous! I can’t wait to check out a trailer when it finally drops online later this year.