Here's when Christopher Nolan's much-awaited Oppenheimer will hit screens

It looks like fans of Christopher Nolan will have to wait a tad longer for his next, Oppenheimer. The American biographical drama, which revolves around the theoretical physicist J Robert Oppenheimer, who is among those credited as the father of the atomic bomb, will hit screens on July 21, 2023. The plot is based on American Prometheus, a biography on the physicist, penned by Martin J Sherwin and Kai Bird. The book was awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography.

Oppenheimer was a key figure in the Manhattan Project, a research undertaking for developing the first nuclear weapons during the second world war. He successfully detonated the first atomic bomb in 1945. The weapons were later used in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Peaky Blinders star Cillian Murphy will play the titular character and the film will mark Nolan's and Murphy's sixth collaboration together, with the first one as Murphy in the lead. The duo had earlier worked together in the Dark Knight trilogy, Inception and Dunkirk.

Emily Blunt, Matt Damon and Robert Downey Jr will play crucial roles in the film. While Emily plays biologist and botanist Kitty Oppenheimer, Matt Damon essays the role of Manhattan Project director Leslie Groves Jr and Robert Downey Jr plays the founding commissioner of the US Atomic Energy Commission Lewis Strauss. Oppenheimer will mark Downey Jr’s first collaboration with Nolan. Damon, on the other hand, had earlier been a part of Nolan’s science fiction epic, Interstellar. The cast includes many supporting actors including Florence Pugh (psychiatrist Jean Tatlock), Benny Safdie (theoretical physicist Edward Teller) and Josh Hartnett (American nuclear scientist Ernest Lawrence). The cast also includes Rami Malek, Dane Dehaan, Jack Quaid, Matthew Modine, Dylan Arnold, to name a few. 

Cinematography for the film is by Hoyte van Hoytema, editing by Jennifer Lame and music is by Ludwig Goransson. Oppenheimer is backed by Universal Pictures. This will be Nolan's first film, which will not be distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures.