The Odyssey’s (forthcoming) two-time Oscar-winning writer and director disclosed that he “shot over two million feet of film” throughout the 91-day shoot, the majority of it at sea, to depict the monumental magnitude of Homer’s ancient Greek epic.
“It’s pretty primal! I’ve been out on it for the last four months,” he informed the Empire. “We got the cast who play the crew of Odysseus’ ship out there on the real waves, in the real places. And yeah, it’s vast and terrifying and wonderful and benevolent, as the conditions shift. We really wanted to capture how hard those journeys would have been for people. And the leap of faith that was being made in an unmapped, uncharted world.” Nolan stated that by “embracing the physicality of the real world”, he is “confronted on a daily basis by the world pushing back at you.”
One of the most substantial works of the Western canon is the Odyssey. The Odyssey was originally translated into English in the sixteenth century. Nolan’s Odyssey chronicles the unforgettable hardships and legendary experiences that Odysseus (Matt Damon) faces on his ten-year journey home to his wife Penelope in the aftermath of the Trojan War.
Nolan elucidated on his creative vision, “As a filmmaker, you’re looking for gaps in cinematic culture, things that haven’t been done before. And what I saw is that all of this great mythological cinematic work that I had grown up with – Ray Harryhausen movies and other things – I’d never seen that done with the sort of weight and credibility that an A-budget and a big Hollywood, IMAX production could do.”
The Odyssey, featuring several Hollywood devas, including Matt Damon, Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Zendaya, Robert Pattinson, Jon Bernthal, and Charlize Theron, is expected to debut in theatres on July 17, 2026.
