Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer filming in New Mexico

Universal Pictures' major feature film Oppenheimer directed by Christopher Nolan is underway in Abiquiu and Los Alamos, New Mexico, according to The New Mexico Film Office.

The screenplay, written by Nolan, is based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning book American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and the late Martin J. Sherwin. 

The biopic-thriller produced by Emma Thomas, Atlas Entertainment’s Charles Roven, and Nolan, follows the tale of an enigmatic man who must risk destroying the world in order to save it. 

Cillian Murphy stars as "father of the atomic bomb", J. Robert Oppenheimer, and Emily Blunt as his wife, biologist and botanist Katherine “Kitty” Oppenheimer. Matt Damon also stars as General Leslie Groves Jr., director of the Manhattan Project, and Robert Downey, Jr. plays Lewis Strauss, a founding commissioner of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. 

Florence Pugh plays psychiatrist Jean Tatlock, Benny Safdie plays theoretical physicist Edward Teller, Michael Angarano plays Robert Serber and Josh Hartnett plays pioneering American nuclear scientist Ernest Lawrence.

The production will employ approximately 190 New Mexico crew members and 1,200 New Mexico background and extras. Oppenheimer will be shot on a combination of IMAX^® 65mm and 65mm large-format film photography including, for the first time ever, sections in IMAX^® black and white analogue photography.

“Oppenheimer is a project from one of New Mexico’s Film Partner’s - NBCUniversal. The production is employing thousands of New Mexicans and will be partially filmed in Los Alamos, which is appropriate as the development of the atomic bomb is deeply tied to New Mexico,” said Amber Dodson, director, New Mexico Film Office.

Additional casting includes Rami Malek (Bohemian Rhapsody), Kenneth Branagh, Dane DeHaan (Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets), Dylan Arnold (Halloween franchise), David Krumholtz (The Ballad of Buster Scruggs), Alden Ehrenreich (Solo: A Star Wars Story), and Matthew Modine (The Dark Knight Rises). 

Oppenheimer is set for a release in 2023.