‘Oppenheimer’: Christopher Nolan’s Next Adds Kenneth Branagh; Releases First Image!! Check It Out!!

Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer biopic just added another name to its already crowded cast, with the addition of Kenneth Branagh in an undisclosed role. Universal Pictures has also released the first image of film: that of Cillian Murphy as the renowned scientist who helped to build the atomic bomb during World War II.

Oppenheimer marks the third collaboration between Branagh and Nolan, as the actor previously starred in Tenet and Dunkirk. The star has also recently become a hot name in Hollywood recently, after receiving three Oscar nominations as Belfast‘s director, producer, and writer. Branagh is also currently in theaters as the renowned detective Hercule Poirot in the film adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile.

The first black and white image of Murphy in Oppenheimer shows the actor with a cigarette between his lips, a nod to the notorious scientist’s addiction to nicotine. Oppenheimer was such a heavy smoker that he would later have throat cancer, and it’s interesting that Nolan chose to add this detail to the film’s first look. With an impressive reported budget of $100 million, Oppenheimer is betting big on Nolan and his star-studded cast to bring people to watch a biopic, a genre that usually doesn’t compete for the top spots in the box office race. And with a delicate theme like the creation of the atomic bomb and its use to destroy the cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima in Japan, it will be interesting to see how Nolan translates Oppenheimer’s story into the language of big blockbusters.

Nolan’s Oppenheimer cast also already includes Florence Pugh as Jean Tatlock, who had an affair with Oppenheimer and was a member of the Communist Party of the United States. Benny Safdie will play Edward Teller, a member of the Manhattan Project and Hungarian physicist who is considered the father of the hydrogen bomb. The movie also features Emily Blunt as Katherine Vissering Oppenheimer, wife of J. Robert Oppenheimer, as well as Jack Quaid, Josh Hartnett, Dane DeHaan, Rami Malek, Robert Downey Jr., and Matt Damon.

In addition to directing the Oppenheimer, Nolan wrote the script, which is based on the 2005 Pulitzer Prize-winning book American Prometheus: The Triumph of J. Robert Oppenheimer, by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin. Nolan is bringing regular collaborators back for the biopic, such as producers Emma Thomas and Charles Roven, director of photography Hoyte Van Hotema, editor Jennifer Lame, and composer Ludwig Göransson.

Oppenheimer’s biopic is Nolan‘s first project since leaving Warner Bros. The movie will be distributed by Universal, which won the bidding war for Nolan’s movies after agreeing to a lengthy theatrical window of 100 days, plus a six-week blackout period surrounding the release of the film, wherein no other Universal film can be released.