Christopher Nolan took the stage at CinemaCon on Wednesday to unveil dramatic new footage from “Oppenheimer,” his sweeping look at the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the American theoretical physicist who helped create the atomic bomb.
Nolan, who has been a big advocate for the big screen and a critic of streaming, took the stage to huge applause from the crowd of movie theater owners. “I know of no more dramatic tale with higher stakes,” Nolan said of his latest opus.
And boy did the film look nail-biting, as Oppenheimer creates a bomb with the potential to lead to unbelievable loss of life and destruction. There were scenes of the physicist’s team engaged in the top-secret work of bomb-making, but the movie also spins forward in time to a point where Russia has developed its atomic technology, triggering suspicions of espionage at Los Alamos. Nolan said that the film’s protagonist made decisions that still reverberate to this day.
“Like it or not, J. Robert Oppenheimer is the most important person who ever lived,” Nolan said, adding, “He made the world that we live in for better or for worse. His story has to be seen to be believed.”
The film, which Universal is releasing on July 21, is one of the most ambitious big studio summer releases in years. It’s a season that’s usually reserved for escapist fare and superhero flicks, but “Oppenheimer” grapples with some weighty themes, not to mention a scientific development that re-shaped the course of history. Oppenheimer guided the Manhattan Project as the head of the Los Alamos Laboratory, before becoming a critic of weapons of mass destruction.
“His story is both dream and nightmare,” Nolan said.
The movie was shot in 70mm with Imax cameras, and the trailer that Nolan shared toggled between smoky black-and-white and color with impeccable production design. A gaunt-looking, fedora-wearing Cillian Murphy is a dead ringer for Oppenheimer, and he has the haunted air of a man who unleashed an awesome weapon, a destroyer of worlds. But when the Manhattan Project was launched during World War II, control of civilization did hang in the balance.
“I don’t know if we can be trusted with such a weapon. But I know the Nazis can’t,” says Murphy’s Oppenheimer.
Murphy is a veteran of previous Nolan films such as “Dunkirk,” “Inception” and “Batman Begins” (he nearly played the Dark Knight, but lost out to Christian Bale and portrayed the Scarecrow instead). The ensemble also includes Matt Damon as General Leslie Groves, Robert Downey Jr. as Lewis Strauss, a member of the Atomic Energy Commission, and Emily Blunt as Oppenheimer’s wife, Katherine. The cast also includes Rami Malek and Florence Pugh.
Nolan is one of the most acclaimed and financially successful filmmakers in Hollywood, having helmed the “Dark Knight” trilogy, as well as “Inception” and “Dunkirk.” His most recent film, “Tenet,” was released in the height of the pandemic and struggled to connect with COVID-wary audiences. Nolan wrote the screenplay to “Oppenheimer” and co-produced the movie.
During its CinemaCon presentation, Universal also offered looks at “Wicked,” “Migration” and the “Fast and Furious” franchise. The studio is riding high on the box office success of “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” which should cross the $1 billion mark in the coming days.
