Director Christopher Nolan has tapped Josh Hartnett to join his upcoming historical film Oppenheimer, becoming part of an already gigantic ensemble cast.
The film centers around the Manhattan Project, the scientific endeavor led by J. Robert Oppenheimer, played by Cillian Murphy in the film, to develop the atomic bomb.
Hartnett, whose role is not known at this time, will also be joining the likes of many A-list celebrities in the project, including Rami Malek, Robert Downey Jr., Florence Pugh, Matt Damon, and Emily Blunt as Robert’s wife, Katherine Oppenheimer, Deadline reports.
We previously reported some of the leaked production and plot details of the film, including that the film is scheduled to begin production in March, that Damon would be reportedly be playing Manhatten Project director Lieutenant General Leslie Groves, and Downey Jr. would helm the role of Lewis Strauss, the chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission.
The plot will apparently trace Oppenheimer throughout his days at Harvard and Cambridge before relocating to Germany, then California, becoming a leader in theoretical physics.
Though Oppenheimer was a key figure for creating the devastating weapons that the U.S. would later drop on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, he became an advocate against nuclear proliferation and development later in life.
As per a reported deal with Universal, Oppenheimer will play exclusively in theaters for 100 days after its premiere scheduled for July 21, 2023, a release window familiar to many of Nolan’s past blockbusters. It’s also just about two weeks prior to the anniversary of the dropping of the Hiroshima bomb.