In the new trailer for Christopher Nolan’s upcoming blockbuster Oppenheimer, General Leslie Groves Jr. (Matt Damon) asks the question that’s on everyone’s minds: “Are we saying there’s a chance that when we push that button we destroy the world?” Cillian Murphy, who plays the “father of the atomic bomb” J. Robert Oppenheimer, confidently responds that the chances are “near zero.”
The dialogue exchange sums up the tense dynamic of the film, which centers around Murphy and Damon leading the real-life Manhattan Project to develop the first atomic bomb in a race against the Nazi Germans, who have an 18-month head start on the US. To accomplish that goal, they gather an elite team of scientists and their families, including Emily Blunt as Oppenheimer’s wife, Katherine “Kitty” Oppenheimer. Watch the trailer below.
Nolan stuck with his love for practical effects for Oppenheimer, visually recreating a nuclear explosion for the film with visual effects supervisor Andrew Jackson. He also wrote and directed the movie, which is based on Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin’s 2005 Pulitzer Prize-winning book American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer.
Oppenheimer opens in theaters on July 21st. The all-star ensemble cast also includes Robert Downey, Jr., Florence Pugh, Rami Malek, Kenneth Branagh, Benny Safdie, and more.
