Christopher Nolan Explains Why He Wanted to Make THE ODYSSEY, His Most Ambitious Film Yet

When Christopher Nolan calls something his “biggest film yet,” it’s a statement worth paying attention to. The filmmaker behind The Dark Knight, Inception, and Oppenheimer is setting sail into ancient myth with The Odyssey, a massive adaptation of Homer’s epic poem, and the movie aims to be a cinematic experience unlike anything audiences have ever seen.

In a recent conversation with Empire, Nolan opened up about why he was drawn to tackle one of the oldest and most iconic stories in human history.

“Emma [Thomas, Nolan’s producer] said it best when we first announced the project: it’s foundational,” Nolan said. “There’s a bit of everything in it. I mean, it truly contains all stories… As a filmmaker, you’re looking for gaps in cinematic culture, things that haven’t been done before.

“And what I saw is that all of this great mythological cinematic work that I had grown up with—Ray Harryhausen movies and other things—I’d never seen that done with the sort of weight and credibility that an A-budget and a big Hollywood, IMAX production could do.”

The “mythological cinematic work” he’s referencing, movies like Star Wars, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Gladiator, all echo the timeless journey of heroes and gods. But Nolan’s mission with The Odyssey sounds even more ambitious. He’s building it on an unprecedented scale.

To capture the raw intensity of Odysseus’ voyage, Nolan went to extreme lengths. The production reportedly shot two million feet of IMAX film and spent four months filming on the open ocean.

“It’s pretty primal!” Nolan said. “I’ve been out on it for the last four months. We got the cast who play the crew of Odysseus’ ship out there on the real waves, in the real places. And yeah, it’s vast and terrifying and wonderful and benevolent, as the conditions shift.

“We really wanted to capture how hard those journeys would have been for people. And the leap of faith that was being made in an unmapped, uncharted world.”

That sounds like it would’ve been an awesome production project to be a part of! Nolan took his cast and crew on a cinematic odyssey.

The movie also marks several firsts like how it’s the first feature to be shot entirely in IMAX and the first to sell tickets a full year ahead of release. The film’s massive cast includes Matt Damon, Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Zendaya, Lupita Nyong’o, Robert Pattinson, Charlize Theron, and Jon Bernthal, among others.

Audiences will get to see the results of Nolan’s voyage when the film hits theaters on July 17, 2026.