First trailer released for Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer

Martin Macdonald - 19 December 2022, 10:01 Modified: 19 December 2022, 10:02 Share

The first trailer for Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer has been released.

The official premise for the movie reads:

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'The film follows the life of theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, the director of the Los Alamos Laboratory during the Manhattan Project, and his contributions that led to the creation of the atomic bomb.'

Oppenheimer features one of the most star-studded casts of recent memory. Cillian Murphy plays Oppenheimer himself, and he is joined by Emily Blunt, Robert Downey Jr., Rami Malek, Matt Damon, Jack Quaid, Florence Pugh, Benny Safdie, Michael Angarano, Josh Hartnett, Jason Clarke, Dan DeHaan, Dylan Arnold, Matthew Modine and Kenneth Branagh.

The trailer shows the first stages on the path to creating the atomic bomb, with testing taking place in the desert.

It is based on American Prometheus, a biography written by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin.

Oppenheimer had a $100m production budget, and according to Variety, when taking into account marketing budgets, the movie will need to make $400m to earn a profit.

Nolan recently revealed that he and his crew recreated the visual and feel of a real atomic bomb blast using real explosives, turning down any offers of CGI.

Speaking to Total Film, he detailed just how difficult it was.

"I think recreating the Trinity test without the use of computer graphics, was a huge challenge to take on.

"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."