Oppenheimer Sequel Could Happen, Says Physicist’s Biographer

An Oppenheimer sequel might sound like a ridiculous proposition.

After all, biopics don’t usually spawn franchises, and at over three hours in length, Christopher Nolan’s film seemed to have inspected just about every facet of its title physicist’s life and work.

But according to one of the authors who penned the biography on which the movie was based, there’s enough unexplored material in the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer to inspire at least one more film.

Along with Martin J. Sherwin, Kai Bird co-authored the acclaimed 2005 book American Prometheus, which served as the basis for Oppenheimer.

Ahead of Sunday night’s Academy Awards, Bird spoke with the Hindustan Times and shared his thoughts about the potential for a follow-up to Nolan’s adaptation.

‘Oppenheimer’ Sequel: Could It Happen?

“It’s very long, but even three hours of movie can’t do what a book can do in 720 pages,” Bird said.

“There’s nothing in the movie, for instance, about Oppenheimer’s childhood in New York, growing up very privileged,” the author continued.

“There’s nothing about what Oppenheimer did after the 1954 trial, when he retreated every year to St John Virgin Islands.”

In fairness, Nolan probably made the right decision by focusing his film on the portion of Oppenheimer’s life that’s most likely to be of interest to viewers.

A movie about a precocious child genius running around turn-of-the-century Manhattan could be interesting, but maybe that project should be left to the likes of Wes Anderson.

And while the Virgin Islands years probably involved some profound introspection, “famous bomb guy takes a sad vacation” isn’t the sort of pitch that prompts studio execs to whip out their checkbooks.

“Let me make it clear that the movie by Nolan is fabulous. It’s a great artistic achievement. And it’s a wonderful adaptation of the book,” Bird continued.

“I can recognize in the dialogues whole sentences and paras taken out of the book. It’s not only an artistically visual experience, but also teaches a lot of history. And it’s accurate. I’m very grateful to Nolan.”

We imagine that any author who devoted years of their life to writing and researching a book that was later adapted into a blockbuster film would do a bit of fretting over all the material that was left out of the movie.

But hopefully, Bird recognizes that zeroing in on the parts of Oppie’s life where he altered the course of human history, beefed with Evil Robert Downey Jr., and had an affair with Florence Pugh was the right call from a dramatic standpoint.

‘Oppenheimer’: How Many Oscars Does It Stand to Win?

And the efforts of Nolan and star Cillian Murphy are likely to be richly rewarded on Sunday night.

The film has raked in an astonishing 13 Oscar nominations (one more would have tied it with Titanic for the most nominations ever).

It’s the odds-on favorite for Best Picture, and Nolan and Murphy are the front-runners in the Best Director and Best Actor categories.

It seems highly unlikely that Nolan would ever direct a second film about the father of the atomic bomb, so we guess Bird will just have to be satisfied with the fact that his book was adapted into one of the most successful movies in Hollywood history.