Cillian Murphy will reunite with Christopher Nolan for the acclaimed director’s highly awaited next film.
Murphy will star in Oppenheimer as J Robert Oppenheimer, the theoretical physicist known as the “father of the atomic bomb”.
The Cork-born actor (45) is a favourite collaborator of Nolan and they previously worked together on the Dark Knight trilogy, Inception and Dunkirk.
The news was announced by studio Universal, which said the film will be released in North America on July 21 2023, a favoured summer slot of Nolan’s.
Universal described Oppenheimer as an “epic thriller that thrusts audiences into the pulse-pounding paradox of the enigmatic man who must risk destroying the world in order to save it”.
The film is based on the 2005 Pulitzer Prize-winning book American Prometheus: The Triumph And Tragedy Of J Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and the late Martin J Sherwin.
It is Nolan’s first project not made at his long-time home of Warner Bros since 2000’s Memento.
The filmmaker (51) publicly criticised Warner Bros last year when it announced its 2021 slate of films would launch on its HBO Max streaming service at the same time as in cinemas.
Nolan is one of the staunchest defenders of the theatrical experience in Hollywood.
As well as directing Oppenheimer, Nolan is writing the film’s script.
