Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer Adds Florence Pugh, Rami Malek, and Benny Safdie
Oscar nominee Christopher Nolan continues to stack the cast for his next feature film Oppenheimer with a new report revealing that he's added three major stars to the roster including a recent Marvel favorite. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Oscar nominee Florence Pugh (Little Women, Black Widow), Oscar winner Rami Malek (Bohemian Rhapsody, No Time to Die), and Benny Safdie (Obi-Wan, Good Time) have been cast in the upcoming "epic thriller" which tells the tale of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the creator of the atomic bomb. The film will mark Nolan's first feature film with Universal Pictures and is scheduled to debut in 2023.
It was previously confirmed that actor Cillian Murphy, who collaborated with Nolan on The Dark Knight trilogy, Inception, and Dunkirk, will take on the title role for the movie. THR reports that Universal's description for the film calls it 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." Other cast members confirmed to appear in the film include Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man, Sherlock Holmes, Matt Damon (The Martian), and Emily Blunt (A Quiet Place). The film will mark Damon's second collaboration with Nolan having appeared in 2014's Interstellar.
With Oppenheimer set up at Universal, the decades-long relationship between Nolan and Warner Bros. has come to an end. It stands to reason that his dissatisfaction with how his previous movie Tenet was treated amid the COVID-19 pandemic, along with WB's decision to push all of their 2021 movies onto HBO Max in addition to playing them in theaters. WB remained in contention to produce Nolan's next movie put Universal, Apple, Paramount, and Sony were all in discussions with the filmmaker to take his next film as well.
After Universal nabbed the rights to produce and release the movie though reports popped up revealing what Nolan's demands for any of his studio partners would have been. In addition to total creative control on the film, THR previously reported that Nolan asked for a $100 million budget with an equal amount to be spent on the marketing, 20% of the first-dollar gross, a guaranteed theatrical window of 100 days, and reportedly a "blackout period" where the studio wouldn't release any other movies in the three weeks preceding and after Oppenheimer's release. It was a tall order, but considering the huge box office that Nolan's movies bring in, not to mention critical acclaim and accolades, it's one that very few others could command.
Set to be shot in IMAX, Oppenheimer will premiere in North American theaters on July 21, 2023.