Christopher Nolan Confirms Oppenheimer is His Longest Movie Yet

When Oppenheimer hits theaters this summer, it will be the longest film on Christopher Nolan’s resume. In a recent interview with Total Film magazine, the filmmaker revealed the biopic will clock in with a runtime larger than that of Interstellar. Though it appears a final cut isn’t ready just quite yet, Nolan’s comments would seem to suggest Oppenheimer will be longer than two hours and 49 minutes, the final runtime of Interstellar.

“It’s slightly longer than the longest we’ve done,” Nolan told the magazine. “It’s kissing three hours.”

What is Oppenheimer about? 

The film follows the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the director of the Los Alamos Laboratory during the time of the Manhattan. Project, the government directive that built the United States its first nuclear weapon. Cillian Murphy steps into the role of Oppenheimer, something the actor’s been after since he and Nolan first worked together on Batman Begins.

“He’s so understated and self-deprecating and, in his very English manner, just said, ‘Listen, I’ve written this script, it’s about Oppenheimer. I’d like you to be my Oppenheimer.’ It was a great day,” Murphy told The Associated Press. “I have always said publicly and privately, to Chris, that if I’m available and you want me to be in a movie, I’m there. I don’t really care about the size of the part. But deep down, secretly, I was desperate to play a lead for him.”

Joining Murphy are Emily Blunt as Katherine “Kitty” Oppenheimer, Matt Damon as Leslie Groves, Robert Downey Jr. as Lewis Strauss, Florence Pugh as Jean Tatlock, Benny Safdie as Edward Teller, Michael Angarano as Robert Serber, Josh Hartnett as Ernest Lawrence, Dylan Arnold as Frank Oppenheimer, David Krumholtz as Isidor Isaac Rabi, Matthew Modine as Vannevar Bush, Josh Peck as Kenneth Bainbridge, Devon Bostick as Seth Neddermeyer, Matthias Schweighöfer as Werner Heisenberg, Christopher Denham as Klaus Fuchs, Guy Burnet as George Eltenton, Danny Deferrari as Enrico Fermi, Emma Dumont as Jackie Oppenheimer, Gustaf Skarsgård as Hans Bethe, Trond Fausa Aurvåg as George Kistiakowsky, and Gary Oldman as Harry S. Truman.

Opening on July 21st, Oppenheimer is based on Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer.