CILLIAN MURPHY has reteamed with Christopher Nolan for the filmmaker’s latest project, now officially titled “Oppenheimer.”

Universal, which landed the project in September with much ado as it became Nolan’s first movie in years not to made with his now-former longtime studio home, Warner Bros., announced the details Friday.

The studio also set a North American theatrical release date of July 21, 2023. The summer month has long been a Nolan release tradition.

Universal called the project an “epic thriller that thrusts audiences into the pulse-pounding paradox of the enigmatic man who must risk destroying the world in order to save it.”

J. Robert Oppenheimer, an American theoretical physics, is considered one of the fathers of the atom bomb, which he helped develop during World War II. The project is based on the 2005 Pulitzer Prize-winning book “American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer” by Kai Bird and the late Martin J. Sherwin.

Nolan is writing the script and will direct. Producing will be his partner and wife, Emma Thomas, and Charles Roven of Atlas Entertainment.

Production will begin in early 2022 and shoot on Imax 65mm and 65mm large-format film. Nolan has already assembled some below-the-line talent, including director of photography Hoyte Van Hoytema, who worked with him on “Tenet,” “Dunkirk” and “Interstellar,” and editor Jennifer Lame and composer Ludwig Göransson, who both also worked on “Tenet.”

Murphy, repped by ICM Partners, has been working with Nolan since 2005’s “Batman Begins,” in which the actor played villain the Scarecrow. He subsequently appeared in the rest of the Batman trilogy plus “Inception” and “Dunkirk.” This will be his first time in the lead role of a Nolan movie.

Once again, Nolan is intent on furthering his filmmaking ethos, which is making big-budget (in this case, US$100 million) prestige pics that play to the summer moviegoing crowd.

(SD-Agencies)