The cast of Christopher Nolan’s upcoming directorial “Oppenheimer” just got bigger with the addition of Robert Downey Jr and Matt Damon. The Universal Pictures project is a biopic of J Robert Oppenheimer, the theoretical physicist remembered as one of the fathers of the atom bomb. According to IMDb Downey, Jr will play the role of Secretary of Commerce Lewis Strauss, and Damon will play Lt. Gen. Leslie Groves, who oversaw the development of the atomic bomb. However, all of this has still has not been personally verified by the actors.
“Oppenheimer” will be the first time that Downey Jr, the star of many Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) films and Oscar winner Damon will work with Nolan. Oppenheimer is based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning book American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and Martin J Sherwin.
Christopher Nolan will write and direct the film, while his creative partner and wife, Emma Thomas, will produce with Charles Roven of Atlas Entertainment. The studio has described the film 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”.
Nolan’s last film was Tenet, the 2020 globetrotting espionage film starring John David Washington, Robert Pattinson, Kenneth Branagh, and Elizabeth Debicki, among others. Cillian Murphy is set to star as J Robert Oppenheimer and Emily Blunt as his wife Katherine. Murphy and the director have worked on his three previous films Batman Begins, Inception, and Dunkirk.
Oppenheimer is slated to be released in theatres on July 21, 2023.