That Christopher Nolan! What an unpredictable man he’s, along with his “films advised out of order” video games, “is it a dream or actuality” tales, “what timeframe are we witnessing issues occur in” trickery, and his “screw it, let’s simply run time backwards” hijinks.
All of which is to say, for somebody with such a notably wacky outside-the-box storytelling monitor file, it’s a bit stunning that Nolan’s subsequent film is seemingly a straight-up adaptation of Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey.
Sure, we don’t actually know all that a lot in regards to the movie but. Matt Damon is taking part in Odysseus, who’s after all the principle character of Homer’s story, and an intensive group of noteworthy actors have been forged in as-yet unannounced roles within the movie, together with Tom Holland, Zendaya, Jon Bernthal, Lupita Nyong’o, Anne Hathaway, Robert Pattinson, and Charlize Theron, amongst others. The Odyssey is capturing now and has a launch date of July 17, 2026, with Universal Pictures calling the movie “a mythic motion epic shot the world over utilizing model new IMAX movie know-how.”
Matt Damon is Odysseus. A movie by Christopher Nolan, #TheOdysseyMovie is in theaters July 17, 2026. pic.twitter.com/7a5YbfqVfG
— odysseymovie (@odysseymovie) February 17, 2025
Real fast for individuals who skipped it in highschool, The Odyssey tells the 10-year story of Odysseus’ try to get dwelling to the Greek island of Ithaca after the occasions of the Trojan War, an effort that’s made all of the tougher when he angers the god of the ocean, Poseidon. And this after already being caught at Troy for 10 years! Waiting for him at dwelling are his now grownup son Telemachus and his ever-faithful spouse Penelope, though issues have grown more and more dicey for each of them as a gaggle of “suitors” vie for Penelope’s hand in marriage. As he fights to get dwelling, Odysseus encounters all method of mythological creatures and challenges.
It’s freaking nice, and certainly one of my favourite books. But it’s additionally confirmed difficult to correctly adapt to the display. There have been a bunch of makes an attempt over time, courting again not less than so far as the 1911 Italian silent movie L’Odissea, however typically the scope of Odysseus’ story has been truncated or mismanaged in translation to film or TV kind. However, Nolan, recent off the monetary and significant success of the Oscar-winning Oppenheimer, is completely positioned to lastly get Homer’s story proper on the large display.
But once more, what precisely is the director drawn to on this story? He’s typically obtained sci-fi or sci-fi adjoining ideas in his movies, and whereas Odysseus definitely exists within the realm of the fantastical, that’s not fairly the identical vibe. (A cyclops just isn’t sci-fi, sorry!) Still, I feel there’s likelihood that Nolan’s actual obsession… no, not lifeless wives, his different obsession… may very well be why he’s making this film, and likewise why he’s good for this film: It’s his curiosity in taking part in with time, or how the viewer perceives time in relation to the story being advised, that’s maybe the important thing to nailing The Odyssey.
One of the the reason why The Odyssey has all the time been a problem to correctly adapt to films and TV (other than the impediment of convincing visible results till comparatively just lately) is the character of the principle character’s story. While his time away within the Trojan War isn’t technically a part of The Odyssey (that’s The Iliad, for individuals who additionally skipped that class), these first 10 years away from his household are a mandatory little bit of backstory that infuses The Odyssey with numerous its emotion. Add to that the ten years that it takes Odysseus to lastly get again dwelling and then the precise re-taking of that dwelling when he battles the suitors (this final half was its personal film alone simply final 12 months – The Return starring Ralph Fiennes), and also you’ve obtained numerous story going down over a really lengthy time period.
I’ve all the time thought that biopics all the time run the hazard of being the CliffsNotes model of an individual’s life, which is why when a film like James Mangold’s A Complete Unknown focuses in on just some years of a historic determine like Bob Dylan’s life, it may be a way more efficient means of telling a narrative. Equally, making an attempt to do The Odyssey in, what, three hours? It’s a tall, tall order.
But right here comes previous Chris Nolan with his timey-wimey and, let’s be truthful, extremely artistic methods of dipping out and in of a narrative, utilizing the very nature of time as a software fairly than an impediment. Look at Interstellar, the place Matthew McConaughey’s Cooper takes off into outer area for what’s principally a one-way mission the place time will get every kind of bizarre for him and his crewmates, even whereas his kids develop to maturity again on Earth and, finally, mourn their apparently misplaced father. There are definitely Odyssey parallels proper there by way of the lacking father on a misplaced voyage, whose household faces catastrophe again dwelling, however it’s the best way that Nolan tells the story, regardless of the challenges of, properly, time, that’s so affecting. He’s not deterred by the huge gulf between the daddy and his kids, however as an alternative makes use of it to his benefit.
Odyseuss fights a large Cyclops, sees a bunch of his males become pigs, and confronts a bunch of different loopy shit in his story, however he additionally faces time as an enemy, and in quite a lot of methods. Not solely is he actually 20 years away from his household by the top of his journey, however seven of these years see him trapped on the island of the nymph Calypso, who loves him and affords him immortality (one other side of time or the notion of it) if he’ll keep along with her. He and his crew’s go to to the realm of the Lotus-Eaters performs with time differently, in that those that eat the fruit of the land lose any curiosity in returning dwelling, content material to remain and eat the fruit endlessly. And then there’s our hero’s journey to the Underworld, the place he finds misplaced family and friends, together with his mom and his comrade Achilles, who’re doomed to exist, if not fairly dwell, for eternity as mere shades of their former selves.
Then there’s the state of affairs again dwelling, as Telemachus was only a child when his father left and is now a younger man. Odysseus’ father Laertes is a tragic shell of his former self, having misplaced his spouse to grief over the previous 20 years, whereas assuming his son is gone endlessly too. And in probably the most efficient passages in Homer’s poem, even Odyseuss’ canine Argos has been ready for him all this time!
Will Nolan have the ability to inform Odyseuss’ full story successfully by using his specific model of stylized filmmaking? The man is fixated on time, and by extension reminiscence, and that definitely appears to be a top quality he shares with the hero of The Odyssey as properly, a person who finally has nothing however reminiscences – of his household and the life he as soon as lived – to depend on as he fights the nice gulf of time to get dwelling.
