NEWS: The Simple Way Christopher Nolan Agreed to Make New Movie Oppenheimer

Producer Charles Roven explains how he convinced Christopher Nolan to sign on to direct Oppenheimer – and it sounds like it was pretty easy!

Producer Charles Roven explains that it didn't take much for Christopher Nolan to decide to direct Oppenheimer. Based on American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, Nolan's upcoming film will chronicle the invention of the atomic bomb and J. Robert Oppenheimer, the man responsible for it. Oppenheimer will follow the director's last project, Tenet, which was released at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and failed to perform at the box office.

Oppenheimer will mark Nolan's first movie after parting ways with Warner Bros. and sees the director team up with Universal, Syncopy Inc., and Atlas Entertainment. Cillian Murphy will play the titular Oppenheimer with Robert Downey Jr. Florence Pugh, Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Rami Malek, Jack Quaid, Kenneth Branagh, Dane DeHaan, Benny Safdie, and Matthew Modine rounding out the rest of the cast. Production on the film is now underway in New Mexico with Oppenheimer currently scheduled to release in July of 2023.

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In a new interview with the LA Times accompanying the release of Uncharted (for which he also serves as producer), Roven discusses Nolan's upcoming film and the process by which the director agreed to make it. As it turns out, it didn't take much convincing, with Nolan agreeing to direct the movie shortly after reading the book. Check out Roven's full comment below:

"I’ve known Chris and Emma for almost 20 years now. We were enjoying a weekend together, and I just brought up this idea. And in talking with them about it, Chris said, 'Well, let me read the book.' And he came back and said, 'I’m interested in doing it.'"

As one of the foremost directors working today, Nolan has a lot of freedom to choose projects as he sees fit. The fact that the book so quickly struck a chord with him suggests that Nolan really did form a connection with the material and the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer's life. Roven has produced three of Nolan's past movies, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, and The Dark Knight Rises, and it's clear that having known and worked with Nolan for so long, Roven has a good sense of the material that the director will like.

Nolan frequently directs more cerebral and action-heavy projects and, at least from the information that has been released thus far about the film, Oppenheimer seems to mark something of an outlier in terms of the director's filmography. It's not yet clear if Oppenheimer will follow a relatively clear narrative structure or if it will opt for something more akin to Dunkirk, his other World War II-era film, which features a non-linear structure. Regardless of how Nolan chooses to tell the story, Roven's comments make clear that American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer resonated with the filmmaker, something that will hopefully translate onto the screen when Oppenheimer releases on July 21st, 2023.

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