After “Oppenheimer” was a critical and commercial hit, Christopher Nolan is adapting Homer’s Greek epic poem “The Odyssey” for his next film.
Universal Pictures announced the movie in late 2024, saying it would be shot using “brand new IMAX film technology” and that it would arrive in theaters on July 17, 2026.
Here’s everything we know about the film so far.
Ayomikun Adekaiyero and Eve Crosbie previously contributed to this post.
Matt Damon will lead a star-studded cast in “The Odyssey.”
Nolan has a reputation for drawing ensemble casts of A-listers, but “The Odyssey” may be his biggest project yet.
Matt Damon will play the film’s lead hero, Odysseus; Anne Hathaway will play his wife, Penelope; and Tom Holland will play their son, Telemachus. Other stars with confirmed roles in the cast include Charlize Theron (Circe), Zendaya (Athena), Robert Pattinson (Antinous), Mia Goth (Melantho), Benny Safdie (Agamemnon), Jon Bernthal (Menelaus), John Leguizamo (Eumaeus), Himesh Patel (Eurylochus), and Jimmy Gonzales (Cepheus).
There are also a host of actors in the cast whose parts have not yet been revealed, including Lupita Nyong’o, Bill Irwin, Elliot Page, Jesse Garcia, Will Yun Lee, Samantha Morton, Corey Hawkins, Nick Tarabay, Maurice Compte, Rafi Gavron, Shiloh Fernandez, Michael Vlamis, Iddo Goldberg, and Ryan Hurst.
Damon, Hathaway, Pattinson, Patel, Safdie, Irwin, and Page have all previously worked with Nolan.
“The Odyssey” is one of the foundational stories of Western literature.
Homer is the attributed author of two ancient Greek poems that were composed in the 8th or 7th century BC, both of which tell the story of the Trojan War.
“The Iliad” narrates the end of the war, while “The Odyssey” tells of Odysseus’ 10-year struggle to return to his island home of Ithaca.
During the journey, Odysseus and his crew fight against a man-eating cyclops, powerful giants, and sirens. They defeat witches and sea monsters, and anger the gods Zeus and Poseidon. But Odysseus has one god, Athena, on his side, trying to help him get home.
Meanwhile, a band of suitors are trying to take over Odysseus’ kingdom in Ithaca, supplanting his son Telemachus and convincing Penelope to marry one of them.
In a dramatic conclusion, Odysseus disguises himself as a beggar and sneaks back onto the island, where he observes the actions of the suitors before reclaiming his family and kingdom.
This will be Nolan’s first film about Greek mythology, breaking away from his regular sci-fi and war films. Nolan also wrote the script.
Shooting started in the spring of 2025 and took place in Sicily, Morocco, and the UK.
Nolan’s “The Odyssey” was partially filmed on the island of Favignana near Sicily, Variety reported.
Known in ancient times as Aegusa, or “goat island,” it’s thought to be the inspiration for the fantastical island where Odysseus lands with his crew and stops to rest, barbecue goats, and drink wine before his run-in with the Cyclops.
Per Variety, the scenes shot in Sicily are said to take up the bulk of the mythical action in the movie, while locations in the UK and Morocco are also being used.
Production wrapped in early August 2025.
The movie’s first trailer had over 120 million views in the first 24 hours of going live.
The movie’s first trailer was unveiled in late December 2025. It had 121.4 million views in its first 24 hours online, according to Forbes.
That’s double the views the “Oppenheimer” trailer did in its first day online.
“The Odyssey” is the first movie to film entirely on IMAX cameras.
That feat had previously been impossible because the cameras are extremely noisy.
Nolan, who has always loved shooting on IMAX, challenged the company to come up with a quieter camera. Damon told the “New Heights” podcast in January what it was like working with the new camera.
“IMAX cameras are really loud. It sounds like a blender, like a Cuisinart in your face when the camera’s close to you,” Damon told hosts Jason and Travis Kelce. So there’s never been these dialogue [scenes in IMAX]. We couldn’t have this conversation with a normal IMAX camera because you wouldn’t be able to hear us.”
“They built this giant thing around the IMAX for those dialogue scenes and a system of mirrors so your eye line would be close to the camera and you could talk to the other actor,” Damon continued. “The amount of work that went into figuring out how to do [that], because he wanted to do 100 percent IMAX, and he did it!”
Nolan’s film could beat “Troy” as the most commercially successful Homer adaptation.
Several filmmakers have brought Homer’s work to screen over the years, including the Oscar-winning Coen brothers and Oscar-nominated German director Wolfgang Petersen.
Petersen’s “Troy,” which premiered in 2004 and starred Brad Pitt and Orlando Bloom, was based on Homer’s “The Illiad.” It was the most commercially successful Homer adaptation, grossing $497 million worldwide. However, it received mixed reviews, with some criticizing it for not translating Homer’s story well. The film holds a 53% Tomatometer rating on the review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes.
Pitt told The New York Times Magazine in 2019 that he was “disappointed” by the film, and the experience made him pivot toward “quality stories” for the rest of his career.
The Coen Brothers’ “O Brother, Where Are Thou?” and the 2004 “The Spongebob Squarepants Movie” are two other Hollywood that are movies loosely based on “The Odyssey.”
Homer’s work has also been adapted into multiple TV series, including 1997’s “The Odyssey,” which starred Christopher Lee and Vanessa Williams.
The most recent adaptation was “The Return,” directed by Italian filmmaker Uberto Pasolini and starring Ralph Fiennes as Odysseus. The film, which is a retelling of the final sections of the epic poem, received positive reviews from critics but made less than $1 million worldwide.
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