The first official trailer for Oppenheimer shows Cillian Murphy as a man uncertain of how severe the impact of developing an atomic bomb will be but feeling the need to create it anyway.
“We imagine a future, and our imaginings horrify us,” Murphy’s J. Robert Oppenheimer says in a voiceover at the start of the trailer, as clips of him in a New Mexico countryside are shown.
“They won’t fear it until they understand it,” he continues over shots of the bomb being built play. “And they won’t understand it until they’ve used it.”
The two-minute trailer aired ahead of Avatar: The Way of Water in theaters over the weekend and was released online Sunday. It provides the most in-depth look so far at Christopher Nolan’s upcoming film and its sprawling cast.
“I don’t know if we can be trusted with such a weapon, but I have no choice,” a conflicted Murphy says, as the atomic bomb gets closer and closer to being completed. “Is anyone ever going to tell the truth about what’s happening here?” he asks, indicating that there may be more at play than meets the eye.
Universal won Oppenheimer in a bidding war, making it Nolan’s first film in years not made at his longtime studio home of Warner Bros. Kenneth Branagh, Robert Downey Jr., Matt Damon, Emily Blunt, Florence Pugh, Rami Malek, Jack Quaid, Josh Peck and more make up the star-studded cast of the project.
The film is based on Pulitzer Prize-winning book American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer.
Oppenheimer hits theaters on July 21, 2023.
