The Original ‘Oppenheimer’: How the BBC Brought the Father of the Atom Bomb to Life Long Before Christopher Nolan (EXCLUSIVE)
variety.comManori Ravindran Executive Editor of International Decades before Christopher Nolan set his sights on a movie about J. Robert Oppenheimer, a science-obsessed BBC executive ventured to America in 1979 to make a $1.5 million TV show about the father of the atom bomb.
Peter Goodchild began his career at the BBC in radio drama, but eventually migrated to the storied “Horizon” science unit to put his chemistry degree to some use.
The division began experimenting with factual dramas in the 1970s, and after delivering a hit series on French-Polish physicist Marie Curie, Goodchild set his sights on the New York-born Oppenheimer. “I’d seen a play on J.
Robert Oppenheimer at the Hampstead Theatre Club way back in 1966,” the 83-year-old tells Variety from his home in Exeter, southwest England, where his Zoom background reveals a room teeming with books on heaving shelves. “It was an amazing story, and I’d always wanted to do it,” Goodchild continues. “Someone suddenly presented me with a book about Oppenheimer and his relationship with one of his other scientific colleagues, which was an excellent story.
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