Cillian Murphy Lands Next Film Role After Oscar-Winning Oppenheimer Success

March 26, 20243 Mins Read

Oppenheimer star Cillian Murphy lands another role in a historical film following his Academy Award-winning performance in Oppenheimer as he joins an upcoming Universal film.

Per Deadline, Murphy will star in and produce the upcoming historical pic, Blood Runs Coal, which adapts Mark Bradley’s titular book, Blood Runs Coal: The Yablonski Murders and the Battle for the United Mine Workers of America. Spectre‘s Jes Butterworth and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny‘s John-Henry Butterworth will adapt the screenplay, having previously collaborated on Tom Cruise’s Edge of Tomorrow. Murphy will produce alongside Alan Moloney via Big Things Films.

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Set in the 1960s in the coal mines of Pennsylvania, Blood Runs Coal chronicles a corrupt American labor union leader, Tony Boyle, who successfully masterminds the assassination of his rival, Jock Yablonski, and most of his family before the slain rival’s son, an attorney, takes him down. Murphy will play the son, Chip Yablonski, who makes it his longstanding mission to bring his father’s murderers to justice.

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Blood Runs Coal is the first role Murphy has secured since he won the Best Actor Oscar for playing groundbreaking theoretical physicist, J. Robert Oppenheimer, in Oppenheimer, the highest-grossing biopic of all time. Murphy’s Academy Award win was one of seven for Oppenheimer, as the film also won Best Picture and Best Director for Christopher Nolan, his longtime collaborator. Murphy has considerable experience starring in period films and shows, including Oppenheimer, Dunkirk and the hit BBC series, Peaky Blinders.

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Murphy’s most recent appearance in a feature-length project was in the historical drama, Small Things Like These, where he also boasts a producing credit alongside Moloney. The film, which focuses on Ireland’s notorious Magdalene laundries, premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival on Feb. 15. Meanwhile, the Irish actor has confirmed he will reprise his role as Tommy Shelby in the upcoming Peaky Blinders film, with show creator Steven Knight revealing principal photography for the movie will begin in the U.K. this September.

Meanwhile, Murphy is also attached as an executive producer for the upcoming Sony zombie film threequel, 28 Years Later, which follows up his 2002 film, 28 Days Later and 2007’s 28 Weeks Later. It’s yet to be confirmed whether Murphy will reprise his role as Jim in 28 Years Later, a two-part epic, with the first part helmed by 28 Days Later‘s Danny Boyle.

Oppenheimer is now available on Peacock.

Source: Deadline