Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer: DYK Oliver Stone was supposed to make movie on the ‘father of the atomic bomb’?

The Oscar-winning filmmaker Oliver Stone, who is known for making a cult classic in the form of Platoon, admitted that he turned down the offer of making a movie on J. Robert Oppenheimer. The director-writer said that he believed it would be impossible to make a movie about the theoretical physicist and ‘father of the atomic bomb’, in the current climate.

Saturday, I sat through 3 hours of #Oppenheimer, gripped by Chris Nolan’s narrative. His screenplay is layered & fascinating. Familiar with the book by Kai Bird & Martin J. Sherwin, I once turned the project down because I couldn’t find my way to its essence. Nolan has found it. pic.twitter.com/4WSljbYxPb

— Oliver Stone (@TheOliverStone) August 1, 2023

#Oppenheimer is a classic, which I never believed could be made in this climate. Bravo. Two historical points I’d argue. Historian Peter Kuznick and I, in our #UntoldHistoryoftheUnitedStates series (2012), made the important distinction that — pic.twitter.com/3AkValOlRi

— Oliver Stone (@TheOliverStone) August 1, 2023

Aside from the points mentioned in my previous post, the movie packs in the essence of the tragedy of #Oppenheimer, a man historically in the middle of an impossible situation, though one, as Nolan shows, partly of his own making. pic.twitter.com/8RJJh7qELU

— Oliver Stone (@TheOliverStone) August 1, 2023

Calling Oppenheimer, a ‘classic’, Stone tweeted, “I sat through 3 hours of ‘Oppenheimer,’ gripped by Chris Nolan’s narrative. His screenplay is layered and fascinating. Familiar with the book by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, I once turned the project down because I couldn’t find my way to its essence. Nolan has found it.”

He added, “His direction is mind-boggling and eye-popping as he takes reams of incident and cycles it into an exciting torrent of action inside all the talk. Each actor is a surprise to me, especially Cillian Murphy, whose exaggerated eyes here feel normal playing a genius like Oppenheimer. ‘Oppenheimer’ is a classic, which I never believed could be made in this climate.”

Writer Paul Schrader, who wrote the iconic, Taxi Driver, called Oppenheimer, “the best, most important film of this century”. He wrote on Facebook, “The best, most important film of this century. If you see one film in cinemas this year it should be ‘Oppenheimer’. I’m not a Nolan groupie but this one blows the door off the hinges.”