Universal Confirms Oppenheimer Is Not Delayed

Oppenheimer is going to keep the same release date after all. July 21, 2023, the dream of a Barbie/Oppenheimer double feature lives on for film Twitter. AP Film writer Lindsey Bahr confirmed the news with Universal and fans of Christopher Nolan are thrilled to hear that piece of news. Earlier today, news of a possible delay stretched over social media as a Variety interview with Cannes Film Festival head Thierry Fremaux made the rounds. In that conversation, he lamented that Barbie and Oppenheimer wouldn’t be at the festival and said that Nolan’s movie would be later in the year as an awards season strategy. The Internet reacted about as you would think. But, it turns out we had a false alarm on our hands.

Here’s how Universal describes the upcoming film “Written and directed by Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer is an IMAX®-shot 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 stars Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer and Emily Blunt as his wife, biologist and botanist Katherine “Kitty” Oppenheimer. Oscar® winner Matt Damon portrays General Leslie Groves Jr., director of the Manhattan Project, and Robert Downey, Jr. plays Lewis Strauss, a founding commissioner of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission.”

Oppenheimer has not been delayed.

— Lindsey Bahr (@ldbahr) April 14, 2023

 “Academy Award® nominee Florence Pugh plays psychiatrist Jean Tatlock, Benny Safdie plays theoretical physicist Edward Teller, Michael Angarano plays Robert Serber and Josh Hartnett plays pioneering American nuclear scientist Ernest Lawrence. Oppenheimer also stars Oscar® winner Rami Malek and reunites Nolan with eight-time Oscar® nominated actor, writer and filmmaker Kenneth Branagh.” 

Nolan Is Very Proud Of The Challenge This Project Represented

“It’s a story of immense scope and scale,” Nolan told Total Film back in 2022. “And one of the most challenging projects I’ve ever taken on in terms of the scale of it, and in terms of encountering the breadth of Oppenheimer’s story. There were big, logistical challenges, big practical challenges. But I had an extraordinary crew, and they really stepped up. It will be a while before we’re finished. But certainly as I watch the results come in, and as I’m putting the film together, I’m thrilled with what my team has been able to achieve.”

“I think recreating the Trinity test [the first nuclear weapon detonation, in New Mexico] without the use of computer graphics, was a huge challenge to take on,” he said later in that conversation. “Andrew Jackson – my visual effects supervisor, I got him on board early on – was looking at how we could do a lot of the visual elements of the film practically, from representing quantum dynamics and quantum physics to the Trinity test itself, to recreating, with my team, Los Alamos up on a mesa in New Mexico in extraordinary weather, a lot of which was needed for the film, in terms of the very harsh conditions out there – there were huge practical challenges.”

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