Oppenheimer Runtime Reportedly Revealed (& It Breaks Nolan’s Record)

Oppenheimer‘s release date has reportedly been revealed. The film, which is due in theaters on July 21, is the latest outing from celebrated director and five-time Oscar nominee Christopher Nolan. It will mark the second time he has made a period film set during World War II following his action-packed 2017 outing Dunkirk.

According to a report from Puck (via julia alexander on Twitter) the film’s run time has been revealed four months ahead of the official Oppenheimer release date.

The run time announced by the report, while it may still change following editing tweaks, is around 3 hours. If this ends up being the film’s true run time, it would make it the longest film Nolan has ever released, beating out his 2014 sci-fi epic Interstellar., which lasted for two hours and 49 minutes.

Everything We Know About Oppenheimer

Although Nolan has covered World War II before, Oppenheimer will take a totally different approach from Dunkirk. While the latter film zeroed in on the dangerous operation that rescued Allied troops who were stranded on a French beach, Oppenheimer is much more of a character-based drama. Starring Cillian Murphy as real-life theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, the film will follow the high-stakes tensions that led to the creation of the atomic bomb.

One reason that the film may require such a long run time is the fact that its cast is jam-packed. Many familiar faces are on hand to play figures both real and fictionalized. This includes Emily Blunt as Kitty Oppenheimer, Matt Damon as Leslie Groves, Robert Downey Jr. as Lewis Strauss, and Florence Pugh as Jean Tatlock, along with an ensemble of over three dozen other performers including Jack Quaid, Kenneth Branagh, and Rami Malek.

Related: Oppenheimer Cast: Every Actor Confirmed For Chris Nolan’s Next Movie

The film may not seem like Nolan’s typical action spectacle at first glance. However, the Oppenheimer trailers have revealed the nail-biting tension at the center of the story, highlighting the fact that the Manhattan Project had the potential to destroy the world during early experiments. If the film is truly three hours long and manages to sustain that time, audiences will likely be left with white knuckles by the time the credits roll.

Source: Puck (via @loudmouthjulia/Twitter)