The first official trailer for Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer has debuted exclusively in theaters.
Variety reports that Universal has released a brief teaser for the upcoming epic biographical thriller film in front of showings of Jordan Peele's Nope, another film backed by the studio. The teaser begins with Emily Blunt as Katherine Oppenheimer saying, "The world is changing, reforming. This is your moment." A countdown of "11 months, 24 days, 15 hours, 29 minutes" appears on-screen, suggesting that Oppenheimer will count down toward the day "the world changes forever," as the film's tagline reads on the poster and teaser. Robert Downey Jr. as Lewis Strauss is also heard calling Oppenheimer "the man who moved the earth" as the title card appears onscreen. The teaser ends with "footage of fire and smoke ... intercut between black-and-white shots of [Cillian] Murphy as [J. Robert] Oppenheimer."
Oppenheimer is not the first time Nolan has opted to debut the first trailer for one of his upcoming films exclusively in theaters. The writer-director did a similar theatrical-only release in August 2019 for the Tenet teaser, which played in front of screenings of Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw. The first Tenet teaser was never released online calling into question whether Universal and Nolan will choose to release the Oppenheimer teaser online at a future point or keep it hidden away after it has finished screening in front of Nope in theaters.
Oppenheimer Features an All-Star Cast
Murphy, who has collaborated with Nolan before in The Dark Knight Trilogy, Inception and Dunkirk, leads the all-star cast as theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, the director of the Manhattan Project and the father of the atomic bomb. Joining Murphy and the previously mentioned Blunt and Downey Jr. are Matt Damon as Leslie Groves, Florence Pugh as Jean Tatlock, Benny Safdie as Edward Teller, Josh Hartnett as Ernest Lawrence, Dylan Arnold as Frank Oppenheimer, Matthew Modine as Vannevar Bush and Alden Ehrenreich as Richard Feynman. Rami Malek, Dane DeHaan, Jack Quaid, David Krumholtz, Kenneth Branagh, David Dastmalchian, Jason Clarke, Gary Oldman and Casey Affleck are also part of the film's large, ensemble cast.
Oppenheimer marks Nolan's first movie at Universal Pictures. He had previously partnered on every movie with Warner Bros. dating back to 2002's Insomnia. However, the director and studio parted ways due to disagreements arising from Tenet's coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic release and Warner Bros.' decision to simultaneously release its 2021 film slate in theaters and on HBO Max the same day.
Oppenheimer opens in theaters on July 21, 2023.
Source: Variety