Universal Pictures
With just about a month to go until the release of Christopher Nolan’s new film Oppenheimer, the acclaimed director has begun to make the rounds in the press.
Some of Nolan’s recent comments about Oppenheimer in an interview with Wired have been particularly eye-opening, as he revealed he showed the movie to a filmmaker who called it a “horror movie” and that people “leave the movie absolutely devastated and [unable] to speak”.
“Some people leave the movie absolutely devastated. They can’t speak. I mean, there’s an element of fear that’s there in the history and there in the underpinnings,” Nolan says of the film.
Set to hit movie theaters in the United States on Friday, July 21 — famously the same day as Greta Gerwig’s star-studded Barbie film — Oppenheimer stars Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer, who is known as the “father of the atomic bomb.” Alongside Murphy is Matt Damon, Emily Blunt, Robert Downey Jr., Florence Pugh, Rami Malek, Benny Safdie, Josh Hartnett, Kenneth Branagh, and more.
Oppenheimer — based on Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer — marks the second time that Nolan has delved into the historical nonfiction drama, as he previously helmed the 2017 World War II film Dunkirk.
While Nolan has previously collaborated with Murphy on Inception, his three Batman movies, and Dunkirk, this is the first time that the 47-year-old Irishman will star as the lead in a Nolan-helmed film.
Given the subject material and the caliber of talent on both sides of the camera, many are expecting Oppenheimer to be a major player at this year’s Academy Awards, particularly in the technical categories, Best Picture, Best Director for Nolan and Best Actor for Murphy.