The Odyssey leaks began on July 25th, when a high-quality pirated version of the film reached millions of people on X thanks to a viral tweet.
At 2:25 p.m. PT, a post was posted on X that read, “Someone uploaded the full movie of ‘The Odyssey’ to X. Can you believe it?” We have amplified the message from the now suspended account. As confirmed by Variety, the message included a high-definition version of the film, which was viewed more than 2.1 million times in less than two and a half hours. By that point, streaming movies were replaced with takedown notices and accounts were suspended.
Indeed, the film’s second weekend box office numbers are still skyrocketing, earning an additional $87 million in that time, and demand for coveted Imax 70mm tickets doesn’t seem to have waned.
As of July 26th, several clones of this pirated movie are available on X, but most of them have been leaked in large numbers by mislabeled files that promise “The Odyssey” but actually show Rickroll. The Rickroll is a long-running Internet prank that tricks people into watching the music video for the 1987 song “Never Gonna Give You Up.”
Universal Pictures released a statement to Variety regarding the leak, saying, “We became aware of the unauthorized posting of the film and immediately began the removal process. We take copyright infringement seriously and will take all appropriate remedies to protect our content and intellectual property rights.”
Beyond copyright infringement, X owner Elon Musk has voiced his opinions on Christopher Nolan’s films, specifically disparaging the casting choices, writing, “Who exactly are the assholes who added DEI lies to their Academy Award eligibility, not just to make the best movie?” Musk then said he would use the AI tool Grok Imagine to create a “historically accurate” version of the film for release this year.
