Director Christopher Nolan’s “mythic action epic”, based on The Odyssey, is reportedly due to go into production in January – and will wrap in March.
The rumours over the film director Christopher Nolan would make after Oppenheimer turned out to be quite spectacularly wide of the mark. It’ll be a vampire horror, the whispers suggested. No, it’ll be a tech thriller along the lines of 1980s helicopter film (and short-lived TV series) Blue Thunder, another report burbled.
Instead, it’s been revealed that Nolan is adapting Homer’s epic poem, The Odyssey, with Universal Pictures announcing in a social media post that it’ll be “a mythic action epic shot across the world.”
The film is currently scheduled for a summer 2026 release, which means Nolan and his collaborators will have to move fairly quickly to meet that deadline. It makes sense, then, that the film is said to be going into production this month – that’s January 2025 if you’re reading this in the future. Production Weekly (via World Of Reel) has Nolan’s Odyssey adaptation scheduled for a four month shoot, with locations including the UK, Morocco and Italy; filming is scheduled to wrap in April 2025.
Among the cast assembled so far you’ll find Tom Holland, Zendaya, Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, Robert Pattinson, Lupita Nyong’o and Charlize Theron. Who exactly they’ll be playing hasn’t been disclosed, but then again, details about Nolan’s latest film are rather scant in general. It’s currently unknown, for example, whether it’ll be a straight period adaptation – placing it in Ancient Greece – or a more contemporary spin like the Coen brothers’ O Brother, Where Art Thou.
Given the interest in Nolan’s films, more details are bound to emerge as the shoot begins, however; if set photos show the likes of Tom Holland and Robert Pattinson clad in fake beards and loin cloths, then we’ll have a better idea of what kind of adaptation the acclaimed filmmaker is going for.
If those set photos also show, say, Zendaya dressed as a vampire and Charlize Theron driving around in a futuristic helicopter, then we could be in for one of the most exciting renditions of a Greek poem ever seen on the big screen. We can but hope.
The Odyssey is due for release in cinemas on the 17th July 2026.
