Christopher Nolan is adapting the Odyssey — and it changes everything we know about epics

There are epics that exist, and epics that exist inside other epics.

The Odyssey, attributed to Homer and composed around the 8th century BC, is the second kind. It is not merely one of the oldest stories in Western literature — it is the skeleton of every adventure that came after it. It is where the Hero’s Journey was first documented at length. It is where the idea that coming home can be harder than leaving took its definitive shape.

And Christopher Nolan is going to adapt that text.

Why this announcement matters

Nolan is not just any director. He is one of the few who, over the past two decades, has managed to make big-budget films that are also studied in film courses. Memento, Inception, Interstellar, Dunkirk, Oppenheimer — each of them tampered with the structure of time, perception, or memory in a way that entertainment cinema rarely attempts.

The Odyssey fits that in an almost obvious way.

Odysseus is not a linear hero. He lies. He disguises himself. He is dragged onto enchanted islands. He spends years detained by nymphs, cyclopes, bewitched winds, and gods with long-term grudges. Time in the Odyssey is non-linear by nature — Homer begins nearly at the end, with Telemachus searching for his father, before circling back to tell what happened.

Nolan films exactly this kind of story.

What we know so far

The production comes from Universal Pictures in partnership with Syncopy, Nolan’s own company, with a screenplay written by the director. Filming was scheduled for the 2025/2026 window, and the cast brings together heavyweight names, with Matt Damon among those confirmed in the first announcements and a large roster of stars around the project.

The release is expected in 2026. Even so, as with every large-scale project, it is worth treating dates and casting as things that can change right up until the lights go down.

The Odyssey that Nolan might tell

The most interesting version of this project would be the one that does not try to faithfully reproduce Ancient Greece like a documentary — but that uses the Odyssey the way Nolan uses all of his screenplays: as a pretext to explore something about the human mind.

What is a man who cannot get home? What happens to someone who waits for years without certainty? How does the memory of who you were before the war survive the war itself?

These are the questions Odysseus asks. And the ones Nolan knows how to film.

Because deep down the Odyssey was never about monsters and gods. It was about the distance between leaving and arriving — and about everything that changes in you on the way back.

Pure epic around here today. See also our take on Toy Story 5 — another story about going home and meeting who we used to be.