The Odyssey (2026 film)

• 1. Introduction

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  The Odyssey, Christopher Nolan's film of Homer's ancient epic, went on sale to ticket buyers on the 17th of July 2025, exactly one year before its release. That was considered an unprecedented move for a major distributor, and audiences answered quickly. Within the first 12 hours, several IMAX 70 mm showings sold out, including half of the 22 theaters offering them in the United States. Those sales earned roughly $1.5 million. The story follows Odysseus, the king of Ithaca, played by Matt Damon, as he struggles home from the Trojan War toward his wife Penelope, played by Anne Hathaway. Universal Pictures is scheduled to release it in the United States on the 17th of July 2026. Why had Hollywood left this tale alone for so long? How does a director known for tactile realism film gods and monsters? And why are historians already arguing over helmets, ships and accents?

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• 2. An Odd Gap

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  In November 2023, Nolan had not yet decided what to make after Oppenheimer (2023). He was open to many ideas, but he felt that whatever came next, he would have to "own it completely".

  In March 2024, Oppenheimer won several Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director. Nolan and his wife and producing partner, Emma Thomas, saw that success as a chance to explore new options. Nolan began writing shortly afterward. By May, Thomas said they had not yet discussed the practical side of production.

  In October 2024, it emerged that Nolan was developing the film at Universal, the studio behind Oppenheimer. Nolan and Thomas would produce through their company, Syncopy. Oppenheimer had been won by Universal at auction. This project was instead set up directly at the studio, which gave it a release date of the 17th of July 2026.

  Guesses about the secret project ranged from a vampire period piece to a reboot of the 1983 helicopter thriller Blue Thunder. Others pointed to an adaptation of the British spy series The Prisoner (1967-68), which Nolan had been attached to in 2009. All of these rumors were debunked. Nolan later reflected on the "disadvantage of never telling people what we're doing", though he admitted he enjoyed the speculation. In December 2024, Universal announced the real title and described the film as a "mythic action epic" to be filmed around the world.

  Homer had crossed Nolan's path once before. He was once attached to direct Troy (2004), the film based on the Iliad that Wolfgang Petersen had developed for Warner Bros. Pictures. Petersen chose to direct Troy rather than a planned Batman vs. Superman film, and Nolan went on to make Batman Begins (2005). Nolan felt he was "in a little over his head" on Troy. After roughly 20 years of large-scale productions, he felt ready for the "sweeping story" of the Odyssey. He also saw an opening, since no major Hollywood studio had made it as a large-scale production. He called that "an odd gap in movie history".

  The price of filling that gap was steep. The film carries an estimated net budget of $250 million, the highest of Nolan's career, and he called it the largest and most challenging production he had ever made.

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• 3. Tactile Mythology

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  Nolan read the Odyssey in several translations, especially those by the classicists Emily Wilson, E. V. Rieu, and Robert Fagles. Wilson's 2017 translation shaped his view of the hero most of all. He described Odysseus as complicated, "an amazing strategist, and a very wily person", and he was drawn to the character's cleverness and inventiveness.

  The films he watched growing up also left a mark. Nolan cited Greek-myth movies from his childhood, particularly the work of animator and special effects artist Ray Harryhausen. He and Thomas called the Odyssey "foundational" because it holds elements of horror, mystery, romance, and thriller stories.

  The script was said to be "very faithful" to Homer, with a few changes. Odysseus's faithful dog Argos gets a more prominent place. Odysseus and his son Telemachus share more scenes. Circe is humanized, unsettling yet sympathetic. The reunion between Helen of Troy and the Spartan king Menelaus is made more complicated.

  The gods posed the biggest puzzle. Nolan wanted to pair the poem's fantasy with his own "tactile realism". His answer was to show the gods' actions through natural phenomena that people of the story's era would have considered supernatural. He called this a "big breakthrough creatively". He had considered casting actors as gods hurling thunderbolts from Mount Olympus. He found that showing the characters' fear of the gods made for a more immersive experience.

  Production designer Ruth De Jong and costume designer Ellen Mirojnick returned from Oppenheimer. The team studied what Nolan called the "very fragmentary archeological records" of the Bronze Age and of Homer's own time. His reasoning was that the oldest depictions of Homeric characters show them as people living in Homer's era. In his words, that is "the way the first audience received the story."

  Mirojnick used costume to signal rank. For Agamemnon's armor, she chose materials that were costly to obtain, such as blackened bronze, silver, and sulfur.

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• 4. The Ensemble

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  Matt Damon was in talks to lead the film in October 2024, having worked with Nolan on Interstellar (2014) and Oppenheimer. Tom Holland was cast around the same time. Anne Hathaway, who had starred in The Dark Knight Rises (2012) and Interstellar, joined in November. So did Robert Pattinson, who had starred in Tenet (2020), along with Zendaya, Lupita Nyong'o, and Charlize Theron.

  Damon plays Odysseus. To prepare, he followed a strict training regimen and diet to become "lean but strong". He gave up gluten and reduced his weight to 167 lb. He also grew a full beard over a year, because Nolan declined to use artificial facial hair and wanted to capture "the physicality of real hair". Universal confirmed Damon in the role in the middle of February 2025, after rumors that Holland might play Odysseus. Holland plays Odysseus's son, Telemachus.

  Hathaway plays Penelope, queen of Ithaca, who is fending off suitors in her husband's absence. Pattinson plays Antinous, one of those suitors. Zendaya plays Athena, the goddess who protects Odysseus. Theron plays Calypso, the nymph of the island of Ogygia, who tries to keep Odysseus as her immortal husband.

  Nyong'o takes a dual role, as Helen of Troy and as Helen's sister Clytemnestra, whose marriage to Agamemnon is acrimonious. Jon Bernthal plays Menelaus, and Benny Safdie plays Agamemnon. John Leguizamo plays the loyal servant Eumaeus, and Bill Irwin plays the Cyclops Polyphemus. Samantha Morton plays Circe, Himesh Patel plays Eurylochus, and Mia Goth plays the maid Melantho.

  Cosmo Jarvis was also cast, but he dropped out shortly before filming began because of a scheduling conflict. Logan Marshall-Green replaced him. The actor Skeet Ulrich said he read unsuccessfully for a role in early February. Other cast members, including Elliot Page and the rapper Travis Scott, have undisclosed supporting roles.

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• 5. On Location

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  Principal photography ran for 91 days, from the 25th of February to the 8th of August 2025, and wrapped nine days ahead of schedule. Hoyte van Hoytema returned as cinematographer. The Odyssey became the first feature film shot entirely with IMAX film cameras. The production used a newly developed version that was lighter and quieter, and it shot more than two million feet of IMAX 70 mm film. The working title was Charlie's Tale.

  Nolan wanted the "physicality of the real world" and the chance to capture "how hard those journeys would have been for people". He felt shifting weather made the practical approach even more demanding.

  The first scenes were shot in late February at the village of Aït Benhaddou, near Ouarzazate in Morocco. It stood in for Troy at the end of the war, in an opening sequence before the bulk of the story. Crews also worked in Essaouira and Marrakesh. For the midnight raid on Troy, van Hoytema rigged many portable LEDs to match the color of firelight, which let Nolan film in any direction.

  From the 10th to the 21st of March, the crew shot in the Messenia unit of Greece's Peloponnese region. Locations included Pylos, Methoni Castle, and Nestor's Cave at Voidokilia beach, where scenes with the Cyclops Polyphemus were filmed. They also shot at an archaeological palace site at Acrocorinth. Greece's Hellenic Film and Audiovisual Center supported the production with more than $6.9 million in funding, alongside a 40% cash rebate.

  By the 27th of March, the production had moved to the Aegadian Islands in Sicily. There it filmed on Favignana, believed to be the "goat island" of the poem. From the 15th of April to the 15th of May, water-borne filming took place around the Aeolian Islands of Lipari, Basiluzzo, and Vulcano for the island of Aeolia. For the sea scenes, the production used the Draken Harald Hårfagre, the largest modern Viking longship, which doubled as an ancient Greek warship and sailed to each location. Nolan described filming at sea as a particularly primal experience.

  Around early May, the crew shot the film's only set built on a Los Angeles soundstage. In early June, they filmed at Findlater Castle in Moray, Scotland. For ten days in late June, they worked in remote parts of Iceland, mostly on black sand beaches, to depict the Greek underworld of Hades. They returned to Moray for Buckie Harbour and Sunnyside Beach near Cullen. The Culbin Forest followed from the 3rd to the 16th of July, then Findlater Castle again through the 25th. Theron shot her scenes in the last two weeks of July. Filming also took place in Malta before wrapping back in Los Angeles.

  Between the 17th and the 22nd of July, Damon and Zendaya filmed at the White Dune near Dakhla in Western Sahara, a city under Moroccan occupation since 1975. The Polisario Front, recognized by the United Nations, and the organizers of the Sahara International Film Festival condemned the choice as whitewashing Morocco's colonialism. The festival's organizers called for the production to be halted, but filming there had already finished. They then called on Nolan to obtain consent from "the legal representatives of the Sahrawi people" or remove the Dakhla scenes. Signers included the Spanish actors Carlos and Javier Bardem and the Sahrawi human rights defender Elghalia Djimi. The Moroccan Cinematographic Center called the film important for promoting Morocco's industry, and said it was the first major American film shot in that territory.

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• 6. Gongs and Lyres

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  By April 2025, Ludwig Göransson was composing the score, after earlier work with Nolan on Tenet and Oppenheimer. Nolan did not want an orchestra, since an orchestra is so commonly associated with sword-and-sandal films. Göransson instead experimented with bronze gongs of various kinds and recorded them with synthesizers. Nolan also suggested the sound of a lyre for the moment when Odysseus plucks his bow.

  The visual effects come from DNEG and Wētā Workshop. Visual effects supervisor Andrew Jackson and editor Jennifer Lame, both previous Nolan collaborators, returned for this film.

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• 7. Teasers and Trailers

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  In February 2025, before cameras rolled, Universal released a surprise first-look image of Damon as Odysseus. Jen Juneau of People called his side-profile pose "brooding" and "intimidating". Joe George of Den of Geek saw a homage to the Hollywood films of Nolan's childhood, such as The 300 Spartans (1962) and Jason and the Argonauts (1963), the latter featuring Harryhausen's stop-motion effects.

  On the 17th of July 2025, a 70-second teaser featuring Holland and Bernthal debuted before screenings of Jurassic World Rebirth. It leaked online soon after. Ryan Britt of Men's Journal praised its "haunting nature" and Bernthal's "ominous" narration, and noted that Odysseus is talked about more than he is shown. The final scene shows Odysseus unconscious and drifting in the ocean. Erik Kain of Forbes worried about the "muted" look and "drained" color grading, while Esther Zuckerman of The New York Times found the teaser "coy" about revealing too much.

  On the 12th of December 2025, a six-minute prologue showed Odysseus and his men using the Trojan Horse at the end of the war. It played before IMAX 70 mm screenings of One Battle After Another and Sinners, and then Avatar: Fire and Ash from its release on the 19th of December. Tim Robey of The Daily Telegraph compared the claustrophobia inside the horse to the capsized-ship sequences in Dunkirk (2017). He did not think it surpassed the bank-heist prologue of The Dark Knight. Daniel D'Addario of Variety likened the prologue to the Trojan Horse itself, a "carefully wrought" story within a story.

  A two-minute teaser trailer followed on the 22nd of December 2025. It drew 121.4 million global views in 24 hours. TikTok accounted for 27%, YouTube 26%, Facebook 21%, Instagram 18%, and X 10%. That made it the eighth most-viewed trailer of 2025. It beat the 113 million views for Wicked: For Good and more than doubled the first Oppenheimer trailer's views over the same period.

  Universal and NBC Sports also paired Damon in an advertisement that promoted both the 2026 Winter Olympics and the film. A short clip aired during the January 2026 NFL Wild Card playoffs. The full teaser appeared during the Winter Olympics, and a shorter version ran during the Super Bowl LX pregame show. On the 25th of January 2026, a minute-long spot ran during the AFC Championship Game between the New England Patriots and the Denver Broncos. It featured a monologue scene with Holland, Bernthal, and Travis Scott, who had contributed the Tenet theme song "The Plan". Bethy Squires of Vulture thought Scott as a bard was fitting, since poems like the Odyssey were historically sung and rapped through.

  Nolan presented new footage at Universal's CinemaCon panel in April 2026. The next month he debuted a new trailer on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. James Hibberd of The Hollywood Reporter called it the "most footage-filled trailer yet". More footage also gave critics far more to examine.

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• 8. Quarrels Over Accuracy

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  The military historian Bret Devereaux argued that iron armour did not exist in Greece in the late Bronze Age, in 1184, the commonly believed setting of the Odyssey. He added that Homeric characters have been shown in anachronistic armour since antiquity. His verdict on the film's designs was that they are "vaguely Greek-looking but not based on anything. Odysseus's armour is evocative of classical armour. Nothing is quite on target."

  Others compared Agamemnon's armor in the first teaser to the Batsuit from Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy. Commentators also noted that the darker, sturdier galleys resemble Viking longships more than the biremes or penteconters of the Trojan War. Caleb Howells of the Greek Reporter said the armor echoes the Archaic Greek designs described in the poem, yet still conflicts with some details.

  The classical historian Tom Holland, who shares a name with the film's Telemachus, took the opposite view. "These are myths," he said. "There is no accurate version of Odysseus's life because he didn't exist. I honestly think an impressionist take on ancient history is much, much better than a painstaking attempt to get every historical detail right, because it's impossible." Julio Bardini of Collider agreed that Nolan deserved some creative liberty.

  The casting of Lupita Nyong'o as Helen of Troy drew backlash from conservative commentators such as Matt Walsh and Elon Musk. Teresia Gray of The Mary Sue called the responses racist. Nolan defended the choice, saying Nyong'o conveyed the "strength and the poise" he found essential. Nyong'o declined to dwell on Helen as "the face that launched 1,000 ships". As she put it, "You can't perform beauty."

  The trailers also drew complaints about American accents from British actors Holland and Pattinson. Hibberd said that choice departs from an unwritten Hollywood rule of British accents in historical epics, and joked that it sounds "more Ithaca, New York, than Ithaca, Greece". He and Nell Geraets of The Sydney Morning Herald noted that Homeric Greek, Attic Greek, and Koine would not work for modern audiences either. Scott Collura of IGN pointed out that Emily Wilson's translation uses plain English too, and quoted her view that "Translation always, necessarily, involves interpretation". Some online commenters mocked the accents as sounding like Boston.

  Nolan acknowledged the concerns and compared his method to Interstellar, as an exploration of "what is the best speculation and how can I use that to create a world?" The debate has not dented expectations. IMDb ranked The Odyssey the most anticipated film of 2026. Variety predicted it would be the year's highest-grossing film, and TheWrap suggested it could surpass The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises as Nolan's biggest earner.

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