If you’ve seen his celebrated Dark Knight trilogy or experienced the mind-boggling sci-fi thrills of Interstellar and Tenet, you’ll know Christopher Nolan only makes epic films.
His newest blockbuster is no different. Nolan is following up the Oscar-winning Oppenheimer with an adaptation of the ancient Greek poem The Odyssey. Spanning 10 years, split into 24 books and featuring everything from vengeful gods to vicious monsters, it’s a beast of a project. You bet we’re excited.
When will The Odyssey be released?
The Odyssey was only announced at the end of last year but the film already has a release date – July 17, 2026. It’s the same release window as Nolan’s previous film Oppenheimer and that did alright at the box office (grossing $957million against a budget of $100million) despite competition from the more broadly popular Barbie.
Who’s in The Odyssey cast?
So far, a lot of big name actors have been confirmed for Nolan’s latest but who they’ll be playing is still under wraps. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Matt Damon, Tom Holland, Robert Pattinson and Anne Hathaway will headline the movie, with Lupita Nyong’o, Charlize Theron, Zendaya and Jon Bernthal set for supporting roles. A first-look image of The Odyssey confirmed Matt Damon will be playing titular king Odysseus.
Matt Damon is Odysseus. A film by Christopher Nolan, #TheOdysseyMovie is in theaters July 17, 2026. pic.twitter.com/7a5YbfqVfG
— odysseymovie (@odysseymovie) February 17, 2025
In January, Elliot Page, Himesh Patel, Bill Irwin and Samantha Morton were all added to the cast while more recent additions include Mia Goth, Corey Hawkins, Jesse Garcia, Will Yun Lee, Rafi Gavron, Shiloh Fernandez, Nick E Tarabay, Jimmy Gonzales, Maurice Compte, Michael Vlamis and Iddo Goldberg.
Speaking on The Dish podcast last year, Holland revealed that he’d signed on without really knowing what the film was about. “It hasn’t started shooting [and] to be perfectly honest with you, I don’t know anything about it. Everything is very, very hush-hush [but] I’m super excited,” he said.
Meanwhile, returning Nolan collaborator Anne Hathaway said she has “so many feelings” about getting cast in The Odyssey after previously starring in The Dark Knight Rises and Interstellar. “It fills me with so much joy, and I don’t know how to talk about it,” she told Women’s Wear Daily. “I love Chris and [long-term writing partner] Emma Thomas so much. To be invited into their world is one of the best places you can find yourself. Getting to be invited twice really felt like something and three felt like it would have been greedy, so I never let myself hope that that would happen again. It makes me feel like I’m doing something right [though].”
Behind the scenes, Nolan looks set to continue his 10-year working relationship with Oscar-nominated director of photography Hoyte van Hoytema and will be writing/ producing the film alongside longtime partner Emma Thomas. Ludwig Goransson is also rumoured to be scoring the project after creating the celebrated music for Tenet and Oppenheimer.
So what’s The Odyssey even about?
Nolan’s latest film is based on Homer’s epic Greek poem of the same name. The Odyssey starts shortly after Odysseus, the fictional King of Ithaca, helped the Greeks emerge victorious from the Trojan War and follows him on his perilous journey home to wife Penelope and son Telemachus.
Along the way, Odysseus has to deal with witch-goddess Circe, the menacing Cyclops and the wrath of Poseidon, with other Greek gods such as Athena and Zeus also playing a major role in the tale. The poem was originally written sometime between 750 and 650 BC and has inspired countless films, including 1954’s Ulysses and The Coen Brothers’ 2000 comedy Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?
It’s not known how faithfully Nolan is going to stick to the source material, but Universal has described The Odyssey as a “mythic action epic shot across the world using brand new Imax film technology.”
Christopher Nolan’s next film ‘The Odyssey’ is a mythic action epic shot across the world using brand new IMAX film technology. The film brings Homer’s foundational saga to IMAX film screens for the first time and opens in theaters everywhere on July 17, 2026.
— Universal Pictures (@UniversalPics) December 23, 2024
What else do we know?
In January, it was reported that parts of The Odyssey will be shot on the Scillian island of Favignana. Also known as Goat Island, it’s said to be where Homer imagined Odysseus landing with his crew to replenish supplies during their epic journey. Production started the same month, with locations in the UK, Morocco and Sicily’s Aeolian Islands also expected to be used for the film.
It’s also been reported that The Odyssey has a production budget of $250million, making it Nolan’s most expensive film yet after The Dark Knight Rises which cost just shy of that. Expectations are clearly high for the film though – in February, it was confirmed Marvel blockbuster Spider-Man 4 would be pushed back a week to July 31, 2026 to avoid a clash with The Odyssey.
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