‘Epic, experiential, real’: What to expect from Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Odyssey’

If it wasn’t for the coronavirus pandemic, Christopher Nolan would have premiered his 2020 film Tenet in India. That honour instead went to The Odyssey, Nolan’s feverishly anticipated adaptation of Homer’s epic poem Odyssey.Ahead of its global release on July 17, The Odyssey was premiered on Friday, July 10, in Mumbai. At a press conference a day later, Nolan explained why he had wanted to bring Tenet to India, and why Mumbai had been added to the list of only four cities that hosted premieres.“I’ve never been anywhere in the world with an appreciation of what movies can be and what they should be for audiences, and to me, it seemed crazy that that we wouldn’t be bringing our films here to premiere them,” Nolan said. “I’m absolutely thrilled to be able to do this.”

The 55-year-old filmmaker’s first official visit to Mumbai was in 2018, as part of an event organised by Kodak and Film Heritage Foundation to promote the use of celluloid in filmmaking. Nolan had previously shot scenes for The Dark Knight Rises (2012) in Jodhpur, and later sequences for Tenet in Mumbai. (Tenet also starred Indian actor Dimple Kapadia.) Nolan and Thomas had also screened an IMAX 35mm print of Dunkirk during the Mumbai Film Festival in 2019.This week, the Oscar-winning director was accompanied on the press tour for The Odyssey by his wife and producer of all his films, Emma Thomas, as well as lead actors Matt Damon and Tom Holland. Damon plays the hero Odysseus, who undergoes a series of trials to get home to his wife Penelope (Anne Hathaway) and their son Telemachus (Holland).“Epic, experiential and real,” Thomas responded when asked to summarise The Odyssey in three words, to which Nolan jokingly added, “Matt, Tom and Anne.”Thomas explained: “The story is told on the grandest scale, it’s also a big experience, it sort of really makes you feel like you’re in it with the characters. As big as the movie is, ultimately, what distinguishes the story for me is the fact that it makes us realise that we have more in common with these people from the past and with our fellow human beings. We care about home, wherever that is.”The scope of the production threw off Tom Holland and Matt Damon at times, they said. Holland recalled turning up for a shoot in Morocco even though he wasn’t required that day and feeling that he had leapt into a time machine. The Odyssey was filmed in Morocco, Greece, Italy, Iceland, Scotland, and the United States, and has a rumoured budget of $250 million.The Odyssey (2026). Courtesy Syncopy/Universal Pictures.“I’m looking at thousands of people in costume, hundreds of boats, the [Trojan] horse listing in the sand as the waves are crashing into it,” Holland recalled. “An AD [assistant director] said to me, just go that way and eventually you’ll find the crew. And I remember walking for what felt like miles.”Matt Damon added his own anecdote, of being followed around by cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema during a crucial battle sequence. The Odyssey has been shot entirely on IMAX 70mm cameras by Nolan’s frequent collaborator Hoyte Van Hoytema.“We were shooting the sacking of Troy, and there was a shot in which Hoyte was following me with the camera that he had on his shoulder,” Damon said. “Buildings were on fire, there were thousands of people battling and somebody on fire ran past me through the crowd as a little detail in the shot. Through this incredible, beautiful chaos, we heard Chris shout cut. Hoyte took the camera off his shoulder and said to me, you realise this is a flashback. That was my moment where I went, this is really big, this is as big as it gets.”Matt Damon in The Odyssey (2026). Courtesy Syncopy/Universal Pictures.There’s much more to The Odyssey than expansive visuals and a plot that stretches over years and takes in numerous characters, Damon and Holland asserted.“The film teaches us that you will live with the consequences of your choices, so choose carefully,” Damon said. He described Odysseus as a “fascinating, complex character”, and The Odyssey as his “one chance to make a David Lean movie”.Damon, who is also a writer and producer, commended Emma Thomas for carrying off such a complicated production. “I said to Emma early on, I’m so happy I’m not a producer on this movie because the level of coordination would just beggar the imagination,” Damon added. ‘She said to me, this is like six or seven movies, but we’ve actually made each of these movies already. We’ve on the water with Dunkirk, we've been up mountains with Batman. So we were prepared to make this one.”Holland said that he was the most surprised that “the scope and the scale doesn’t come at the behest of the emotion” in Nolan’s screenplay. “You’re going to see set pieces that are going to blow you away and you’ll see things that you’ve never seen before,” Holland added.Tom Holland in The Odyssey (2026). Courtesy Syncopy/Universal Pictures.By choosing to shoot The Odyssey with IMAX 70mm cameras, Nolan is “welcoming the audience into a unique experience”, Holland said.“I think that you will get to feel the heartache that Matt portrays so well,” he elaborated. “You’ll get to feel the longing from Anne Hathaway as Penelope know. And I think that I've never experienced anything like that as an audience member, let alone as an actor. People will watch this movie and feel a sense of connection to Chris’s work and our work that feels profound.”Nolan enjoys a cult reputation in India, where his previous films have been big box-office draws. “Films are a universal language – one of the things I most enjoy about working on large-scale films is that you get to take them around the world and you get to connect with different cultures,” Nolan observed.”Homer’s Odyssey was written nearly 3,000 years ago, and has been a massive influence on dramaturgy the world over. There has been a bunch of film adaptations, most recently, Uberto Pasolini’s The Return (2024), starring Ralph Fiennes as Odysseus, Juliette Binoche as Penelope and Charlie Plummer as Telemachus.“Anytime you take on a piece of literature that’s known and beloved by some people, a lot of different people have a lot of different ideas of what it’s going to be like,” Nolan said about his take on the original text. “When Emma and I were doing the Dark Knight films, we were working on a beloved character, Batman. We realised that you just have to make the best film you can and put out a strong interpretation, your interpretation. People who love the piece of literature, in this case Homer’s Odyssey, will hopefully enjoy the respect that we’re showing to the original source.”