A recent WSJ. Magazine interviewwithNo Time to DiedirectorCary Joji Fukunagahas revealed that Oscar winnerTom Stoppardhas come on write the script forShockwave, Fukunaga’s upcoming movie about the atomic bomb that America dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima in August 1945.
The project, which has been in development at Universal for several years, is based onStephen Walker’s non-fiction bookShockwave: Countdown to Hiroshima, which offers a historical account of the days leading up to the nuclear strike that devastated Japan and ushered in the nuclear age. Walker’s book begins three weeks earlier and tells the stories of the Manhattan Project scientists who created the nuclear weapon in the New Mexico desert, the pilots who deployed the bomb, the Japanese victims on the ground, and the world leaders behind that fateful day, includingPresident Truman.
Tim Bevan andEric Fellnerwill produceShockwavevia their Working Title Films banner, which initially developed the project withDrivescribeHossein Amini.
Fukunaga is the director ofSin Nombre,Jane EyreandBeasts of No Nationwhose fourth film behind the camera is the latest James Bond adventureNo Time to Die, which is now slated for release in April. Fukunaga also directedTrue Detectivefor HBO andManiacfor Netflix, and he just agreed to direct three episodes of the WWII-era limited seriesMasters of the Airfor Apple, where he recently signed a first-look deal. Fukunaga is believed to still be developingStanley Kubrick’s unproduced screenplay aboutNapoleonfor HBO and executive producerSteven Spielberg, whom he’s working with onMasters of the Air.
Stoppardalsogoes way back with Spielberg, having written the director’s 1987 filmEmpire of the Sun, which was nominated for six Oscars. Stoppard went on to win an Oscar for writingShakespeare in Love, the movie that managed to beat Spielberg’s war epicSaving Private Ryanfor Best Picture. Stoppard also co-wroteBrazilwithTerry Gilliam, and his more recent credits includeTulip Fever,Joe Wright’sAnna Karenina, and the BBC adaptation ofParade’s EndstarringBenedict CumberbatchandRebecca Hall.
Click here to read more about the delay ofNo Time to Die, and scroll below for a synopsis ofShockwavefrom Amazon.
A riveting, minute-by-minute account of the momentous event that changed our world forever.
On a quiet Monday morning in August 1945, a five-ton bomb—dubbedLittle Boyby its creators—was dropped from an American plane onto the Japanese city of Hiroshima. On that day, a firestorm of previously unimagined power was unleashed on a vibrant metropolis of 300,000 people, leaving one third of its population dead, its buildings and landmarks incinerated. It was the terrifying dawn of the Atomic Age, spawning decades of paranoia, mistrust, and a widespread and very real fear of the potential annihilation of the human race.
Author Stephen Walker brilliantly re-creates the three terrible weeks leading up to the wartime detonation of the atomic bomb—from the first successful test in the New Mexico desert to the cataclysm and its aftermath—presenting the story through the eyes of pilots, scientists, civilian victims, and world leaders who stood at the center of earth-shattering drama. It is a startling, moving, frightening, and remarkable portrait of an extraordinary event—a shockwave whose repercussions can be felt to this very day.
