Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer sneak peek explodes into theaters with Avatar: The Way of Water

IMAX showings of Avatar: The Way of Water dropped a cinematic bomb on audiences starting on Thursday: a sneak peek at Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer.

Similar to Nolan's last work, Tenet, footage from Oppenheimer was screened exclusively in theaters as part of the previews that played in front of the Avatar sequel. The footage won't be released online in any official capacity, so only those going to see one of the biggest films of the year in cinemas will experience that treat — apart from any illegal leaks.

Cillian Murphy, who's appeared in many of Nolan's movies, stars as J. Robert Oppenheimer, the physicist on the Manhattan Project and father of the atomic bomb. Emily Blunt plays his wife, biologist and botanist Katherine "Kitty" Oppenheimer.

The footage opens with Murphy's Oppenheimer exiting a car in the desert as wind whips sand across the landscape. He climbs a ladder to the top of a tower to survey his work.

"You're a dilettante, you're a womanizer, unstable, theatrical, neurotic," says Matt Damon's General Leslie Groves Jr., director of the Manhattan Project.

"Brilliance makes up for a lot," retorts Oppenheimer.

The two proceed with their verbal sparring. "Why don't you have a Nobel Prize?" Groves asks.

"Why aren't you a general?" Oppenheimer counters.

"They're making me one for this," he says.

Other notables in the film include Robert Downey, Jr. as Lewis Strauss, a founding commissioner of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission; Florence Pugh as psychiatrist Jean Tatlock; Benny Safdie as theoretical physicist Edward Teller; Michael Angarano as Robert Serber; and Josh Hartnett as pioneering American nuclear scientist Ernest Lawrence.

The cast also includes Rami Malek, Kenneth Branagh, Dane DeHaan, Dylan Arnold, David Krumholtz, Alden Ehrenreich, Matthew Modine, and Jack Quaid.

The theater-exclusive trailer cuts back and forth between black-and-white scenes, which seem to be used for a governmental hearing involving Oppenheimer; and color, which enhances Oppenheimer's efforts to make the atomic bomb. Audiences can see shots of the man walking through a hall full of photographers to testify, as the story cuts to an in-color moment when Oppenheimer and Kitty arrive at a model town in the middle of nowhere to conduct his tests.

The goal, a voice says, is to create "a pillar of fire 10,000 feet tall."

"But what happens if the chain reaction doesn't stop?" Oppenheimer asks. The answer is "it will ignite the atmosphere."

The intensity of the music builds as the trailer gets closer and closer to revealing the mushroom cloud explosion, but it cuts to black before giving up the money shot. The footage ends with a scene featuring Downey's Strauss. "Well, we all know what happened later," he says.

Oppenheimer marks the first Nolan film since the hit-maker left Warner Bros. after releasing two decades worth of movies with the studio. During the height of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, WB leadership decided to pair the theatrical premieres for their entire 2021 film slate with a 31-day run on HBO Max starting the same day. Nolan publicly condemned the act, though the studio has gone back to a more traditional release model.

Oppenheimer will now release in theaters by way of Universal Pictures starting July 21, 2023.

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