Universal Pictures has unveiled the first poster for Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer, exactly one year before the movie is scheduled to hit theaters.
The newly released poster features a silhouette of Cillian Murphy's titular character wearing a suit and a wide-brimmed hat. He is standing against an explosive backdrop, surrounded by a blaze of heavy smoke clouds. "The world forever changes," reads the tagline, which marks the one-year countdown to the scheduled release of Oppenheimer on July 21, 2023.
Oppenheimer stars Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer, the theoretical physicist who is often credited as the "father of the atomic bomb." As such, Murphy's name appears on the poster alongside several other high-profile actors from the movie's star-studded cast, including Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr., and Florence Pugh.
Nolan's upcoming film is based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning book "American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer" written by Kai Bird and the late Martin J. Sherwin. The biopic has reportedly made use of a $100 million budget, which the director considers to be on a "smaller scale" compared to his previous movies.
Oppenheimer will be the first film Nolan has worked on with Universal Pictures after they picked up the film rights following an extensive bidding war. Nolan's long-time collaborative streak with Warner Bros. came to an abrupt end shortly after he expressed anger towards the studio for launching their films day and date on HBO Max, which the director called "the worst streaming service."
Nolan is known for his directorial work on The Dark Knight trilogy, Inception, and Interstellar, and has partnered with Warner Bros. on his films dating back to 2002's Insomnia. His last film Tenet underperformed at the box office in 2020, partially due to the fact that it was released around the same time as a massive pandemic-induced movie theater shutdown.
See our list of all of Christopher Nolan's movies ranked to see his top films.
Adele Ankers-Range is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow her on Twitter.