You should know by now that Christopher Nolan does things his way, even movie trailers. And so, in true Nolan fashion, the teaser trailer for his upcoming historical biopic Oppenheimer was a theatrical affair, appearing before US screenings of Nope and other films across the pond ( since we’re still waiting a few more weeks for Nope to fall from a big hole in the sky). Now, the teaser has also been released online, but in an interactive version that makes it very clear when the film is released. Beyond a live version on YouTube and Twitter, the trailer came primarily via its own special website, one that counts down to the film’s theatrical arrival down to the millisecond. Go to oppenheimermovie.co.uk now to see the full interactive version.
It’s largely a monochrome affair, with all the footage of Cillian Murphy as the ‘father of the atomic bomb’ in black and white, but it’s also punctuated by burning orange ash and vibrant photos of solar activity. This, after all, was a man who had the power of the sun in the palm of his hand and used it to create one of the most destructive forces on our planet. If there’s little real imagery in this one, it does offer an early glimpse of Nolan’s approach here: a countdown to destruction, a look at someone who reshaped our world (or, “the most important man that never lived,” as one voice has it here), and an exploration of the scientific forces that made it possible. It looks like heady, haunting stuff with a real sense of heft – a Christopher Nolan movie, in other words.
As the trailer makes clear, the film, which also stars Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr., Florence Pugh, Rami Malek and many, many more, opens in 11 months, 17 days, 23 hours, 25 minutes and 8,719 seconds. . Wait, make that 1,192 seconds. Hold on again, it’s now 24 minutes. We can’t keep up! For those without calculator brains, that’s July 21st, as many people have pointed out, also the release date of Greta Gerwig’s Barbie movie. Or, as we say around here, a film about “the most important doll that never lived”.