Empire magazine has unveiled the first substantial glimpse of Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey, offering a striking introduction to the director’s vision of the Homeric universe. The cover features a colossal, waterlogged Trojan Horse, while Matt Damon—reuniting with Nolan after Interstellar and Oppenheimer—appears ready to embody an Odysseus (Ulysses) born of legend.
Inside the magazine, the imagery intensifies: a blackened Horse buried in sand, men struggling to haul it, Odysseus and his crew in full armor, and Damon—helmet off—standing before his ship. The ensemble is stacked: Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Zendaya, Lupita Nyong’o, Robert Pattinson, Charlize Theron, Jon Bernthal, Benny Safdie, John Leguizamo, among many others.
Nolan’s Radical Take on a Classic
Speaking to Empire, Nolan describes the film as “fundamental” and “primitive,” placing it in a cinematic tradition he believes Hollywood has long neglected. He cites the mythic adventure films of Ray Harryhausen as a spiritual anchor, but insists his Odyssey is built with the scale and credibility only an A-budget IMAX production can offer.
The director reveals the shoot spanned 91 days and consumed over 610 kilometers of film, amounting to roughly 139 hours of footage—a hint that the final cut may stretch past the three-hour mark. Much of the production unfolded on open water. “It’s pretty primal,” he laughs.
Damon Steps Into Legend
For Damon, the role proved transformative. “Without exaggeration, it was the best experience of my career,” he says. Shooting real sea sequences for four months shaped both performance and tone: vast, dangerous, exhilarating. “We wanted to capture how daunting those journeys truly were—setting off into an uncharted world.”
A Story Rooted in Real Landscapes
Nolan’s Odyssey spans the Mediterranean and beyond: Sicily’s Favignana and Aeolian Islands, Greece’s Peloponnese, Morocco for Troy, and rugged locations across Scotland and England. The goal is clear—myth carved into physical geography, not CGI.
Set for 2026, Odyssey aims to redefine epic storytelling. If Nolan delivers on his ambition, this may become the most elemental and authentic screen retelling of Homer’s saga yet.
