Production has officially begun on Christopher Nolan's “Oppenheimer.” The lack of Michael Caine in the below cast is a bit disappointing, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he gets a non-credited role.
Yes, this is just a picture of Cillian Murphy with a hat on. Oppenheimer was a chain-smoker, so it’s unsurprising to see a cigarette in his mouth.
The cast Nolan had assembled for “Oppenheimer” is astonishing; Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr. Florence Pugh, Rami Malek, Benny Safdie, Josh Hartnett, Kenneth Branagh and Alden Ehrenreich.
On 01.21.21 I wrote:
Consider us very excited for Christopher Nolan’s upcoming “Oppenheimer.” This is going to be the director’s return to non-sci-fi filmmaking and we all know how good he can be outside the genre.
A slew of details about Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” have been revealed via a leaked production note. The film is said to start production in February until June. That’s a 5 and a half month shoot.
As you may already know, Cillian Murphy will play father of the hydrogen bomb J. Robert Oppenheimer. A man who, despite inventing it, wanted to place International controls on his dangerous invention, post-Hiroshima.
Emily Blunt will play his wife Kitty Oppenheimer. Florence Pugh is Jean Tatlock, a member of the Communist Party of the United States who also ended up having an affair with Robert.
Matt Damon will play Lt. Gen. Leslie Groves, the director of the Manhattan Project, which helped create the A-bomb.
Robert Downey Jr. is Atomic Energy Commission chairman Lewis Strauss. Benny Safdie portrays Superbomb advocate Edward Teller. Both would team up with FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover to destroy Oppenheimer’s credibility and strip him of any controls he may have had in its usage.
Nolan’s film is said to follow Oppenheimer from his earliest days at Harvard and Cambridge, then to Germany where he studied theoretical physics, and then to Berkeley, California where he established the leading American school of theoretical physics.
It’s finally in New Mexico where Oppenheimer used the dessert as his own laboratory to test and develop the A-bomb.
The film would carry a substantial budget, believed to be over $100 million, which had Universal immediately jumping onboard to work with Nolan. As mentioned, this is Nolan going back to “Dunkirk” territory. Of course, it sounds a bit more like a biopic, so it could very well end up being primo Oscar bait.
Of course, we all know the rule: take these reactions with a grain of salt rather than treating them as gospel. Still, I will say that the film tested like gangbusters earlier this year, and Lionsgate clearly has confidence.