Director Christopher Nolan told Empire magazine earlier this year that he shot “over 2 million feet of film” during the making of The Odyssey, which was shot over 91 days. The film is Nolan’s adaptation of Homer’s Greek epic and is a follow-up project to Oppenheimer, which won him Oscars for Best Picture and Best Director.
Director Nolan told the magazine why he chose to adapt Homer’s The Odyssey: “As a filmmaker, I’m looking for gaps in film culture, things that haven’t been done before.” “And what I saw was that all of the great mythological films that I grew up watching, like the Ray Harryhausen movies, I had never seen them done with the weight and authenticity that you could get in a low-budget, big-budget Hollywood IMAX production.”
Matt Damon will be reuniting with director Nolan after “Interstellar” and “Oppenheimer,” and will be headlining the film as Odysseus, the main character in “The Odyssey.” Tom Holland plays his son Telemachus. This vast ensemble also includes Anne Hathaway, Zendaya, Lupita Nyong’o, Robert Pattinson, Charlize Theron, and Jon Bernthal.
In typical Nolan fashion, the filming of “The Odyssey” was “pretty primitive”, as the cast and crew filmed in as many real locations as possible. This included filming in the open ocean.
“As the situation changes, it becomes vast and terrifying and wonderfully merciful,” Nolan said. “We really wanted to portray how difficult those journeys were for people, and the leaps of faith that were taking place in an uncharted, uncharted world… Embracing the physicality of the real world in the making of a film allows you to tell the story in an interesting way, because every day you are faced with the world pushing against you.”
Damon told Empire that The Odyssey will be “exactly what you want in a summer movie,” adding: “It’s going to be a really fun movie. It’s going to have a mythical feel to it.”
“I can say without exaggeration that this was the best experience of my career,” Damon added, noting that he remembers showing up on set one day to see the real Trojan horse recreated in full size. “When I saw the horse on the beach, I thought, ‘Damn.’ It was so cool.”
“Odyssey” is scheduled to be released by Universal Pictures on July 17, 2026.
