At time of writing, we’re practically a full year away from the release of Christopher Nolan’s next film, a biopic of “father of the atomic bomb” J Robert Oppenheimer. Apparently he caused the world to “forever change”, or the new movie should “forever change” our world—either way it’s a date to put in your calendar with some excitement.
Although no trailer has been confirmed, the ominous, striking poster below gets us very excited for the release of Oppenheimer on July 20, 2023. We can see frequent Nolan collaborator Cillian Murphy stalking through a fiery, mushroom-cloud dreamscape of his own tragic creation, and four megastar names join his at the top of the poster. Are they the only big celebs involved in this movie? Gosh no. No. Not at all.
The cast list for Oppenheimer is frankly ludicrous, including everybody from Oscar winners (Rami Malek, Kenneth Branagh, Gary Oldman, Casey Affleck), a whole lot of “oh yeah that guy” character actors (Jason Clarke, David Dastmalchian, Michael Angarano, Alden Ehrenreich, Dane DeHaan, Matthew Modine, David Krumholtz, Alex Wolff), and a few megastars (Downey Jr, Blunt, and Damon) who agreed to take a massive paycut in order to appear in the Nolan film.
They’d normally get $10-20 million, but only got a measly $4 million, in order for the $100 million budget and ensemble to come together. We thank you for your agonising sacrifice, guys.
This Tweet from our own Clarisse Loughrey made us wonder just how much screentime each of these big names is going to get in the final film, no matter how long it reaches over the two-hour mark.
christopher nolan handing out lines of dialogue to his oppenheimer cast pic.twitter.com/xnM0OgOeZd
— Clarisse Loughrey (@clarisselou) March 22, 2022
The main thing we can’t get over while looking at the first Oppenheimer poster is just how much that hat and zooty suit are reminiscent of Jim Carrey’s The Mask. I am become Cuban Pete, destroyer of worlds…
Computer, enhance pic.twitter.com/qzXjRQ4tH2
— Maddie (@maddiewhittle) July 21, 2022
Then there’s the inevitable comparison to 2023’s other atomic, celeb-filled biopic being released on July 20th. Yep, Greta Gerwig’s live-action Barbie film comes out on the same day as Oppenheimer. Come on Barbie, let’s go party with the Manhattan Project madmen.
In honor of the Oppenheimer poster being released, I created something for all my fellow Barbie fans!!! pic.twitter.com/50hm59DWH2
— Cassie Grace (@whovianrad) July 21, 2022
This will be the first Christopher Nolan movie in more than 20 years not to come from Warner Brothers, since the studio so disappointed the auteur with their decision to release cinematic films to streaming only weeks after their brick-and-mortar premieres. Instead he’s working with Universal to make Oppenheimer so bomb: keep your eyes peeled for a trailer before July 2023.
