There seems to be a very similar, earlier movie from Japan called "The Man Who Stole the Sun" (Taiyo o nusunda otoko) about, you guessed it, a college student who creates an garage kit atom bomb then gets pursued by the authorities.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0194426/
Does anyone know id The Manhattan Project was inspired by this foreign film?
I just found out about the 1979 Japanese film, and I'd say Yes...this movie is an unauthorized remake of the Japanese movie. They'd probably never admit to this being a remake, but from what I've read about the earlier film, I'd say it was.
shareyeah...yeah...I hear what you're saying. Of course, other than the basic "some dude makes a nuclear bomb," the movies have zero in common with each other. So there's that. LOTS of movies sound similar from their descriptions, but are vastly different on film.
I seem to recall that he's a HS teacher in the Japanese film, not a college student.
They were probably both inspired by the news story of the college student who made a nuclear bomb for college credit (without plutonium). There was also an episode of Barney Miller based on this as well.
These were all based on some kid from Princeton who made or at least designed a nuclear weapon using publicly-available information, way back in the mid-70's
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