Earlier today, it was announced that Christopher Nolan would finally be exiting Warner Bros. after working with the studio for nearly two decades after Universal Pictures won a bidding war for his untitled World War II film that will focus on the development of the atomic bomb by J. Robert Oppenheimer and The Manhattan Project.
Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer/Atomic Bomb Movie Lands At Universal
Chiming in with more details is Variety is, offering specifics such as the film’s budget being eyed for around $100 million, as Universal will both finance and distribute the pic. Additionally, while it sounds like more of a drama, Nolan’s untitled Atom Bomb development movie will reportedly use “extensive visual effects,” likely to recreate the atomic bomb tests and WWII era Japan/United States.
Filming is said to begin in the first quarter of 2022, as Universal is expected to release sometime between 2023-2024. Specifically, either late 2023 or sometime in 2024, a date that is arguably far later than initially expected by many when the project was first announced.
Irish actor Cillian Murphy (“Free Fire,” “Dunkirk“) has been mentioned as being in the mix for the project but hasn’t officially signed on; Murphy has an incredible resemblance to Oppenheimer and would make an excellent casting choice after working with the filmmaker on a multitude of projects in the past.
Given the film’s production starting early next year, we likely won’t have to wait too long for official casting additions.
It remains to be seen if we’ll see Nolan will include footage or sequences from the Pacific War to help establish how brutal that campaign was. While it’s not mentioned in previous reports, hopefully, Nolan is sensitive to the fact that the atomic bombs unleashed upon Japanese cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed innocent people, not just military targets. Thousands of Japanese civilians were killed for simply being in the path of the devastating American weapons, and it’ll be interesting to see if Nolan’s film is something or a moral thriller on top of just a race-against-time to end WWII.
READ MORE: Report: Christopher Nolan Unlikely To Work With WB Again After HBO Max Announcement
It should be interesting to see if Christopher Nolan will make Universal his new studio home or will simply put up future films to auction, moving around to places that offer the best deal project to project.