Christopher Nolan is gearing up for his next big feature film, Oppenheimer, and ahead of the project's first day of filming, new set photos have been released that tease an early 20th-century town.
Following his mind-bending espionage thriller, Tenet, Nolan is returning to the big screen with the historical biopic Oppenheimer, a Universal Pictures film that will center on theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) and his involvement with the creation of the atom bomb. Oppenheimer will be the first Nolan film under Universal Pictures, as the director parted ways with Warner Bros. due to his frustration with the studios' 2021 hybrid model of having its 2021 films premiere on the HBO Max streaming service simultaneously with their theatrical release.
With filming reportedly beginning on sometime next week, set photos released by Radar reveal construction is being done on a set that appears to resemble an early 20th-century town. The set of the town is filled with rustic buildings, classic/old fashion automobiles, and plenty of tumbleweeds. As seen in the photos, one of the wooden buildings surrounded by set lifts reads, "LIVERY & BOARD," while another image shows what appears to be another location of the same set, as it reveals a stone building with a large sign that reads "BUTTERFLY CLUB."
Two other brick buildings are presented in a couple more photos, one supposedly being an Ice Cream shop, and a truck can be spotted in the background driving around set with equipment strapped on top. While it's unclear what part of Oppenheimer those set images hint at, another photo reveals that filming will take place on UCLA's campus, a university where Oppenheimer was a professor. The photo presents scaffolding around the same exact building where Oppenheimer actually taught many lectures years ago. Radar reports that filming at the UCLA building will begin Monday.
While this may be one of Nolan's straightforward films, judging from the set photos, the visionary director is continuing to favor real-life sets and the old-school filmmaking techniques over green screens and an abundance of CGI. If Murphy's recent comments about how fans should expect the unexpected with Oppenheimer are true, it seems that Nolan is cooking up another memorable story for audiences to soak in, and one that could easily become a big award season contender.
Other than Murphy in the leading role, Oppenheimer's star-studded cast also includes Robert Downy Jr., Matt Damon, Emily Blunt, Florence Pugh, Benny Safdie, Rami Malek, Josh Hartnett, Matthew Modine, Jack Quaid, and Amazing Spider-Man 2 star Dane DeHaan. The film is based on the 2005 Pulitzer Prize winner American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer.
Oppenheimer is set to arrive in theaters on July 21, 2023.
Source: Radar