Trailer: Christopher Nolan’s THE ODYSSEY Doesn’t Need To Be Historically Accurate

Posted on May 9, 2026 by Niall Browne in News

The first full trailer for Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey has dropped – and it looks pretty impressive (as you would expect from a Nolan film). It’s got the usual muted colour palette, but he’s trying something a little different here with the material and timeframe and I applaud that.

There’s a lot of online chatter about the casting being off – and that the costumes and dialogue aren’t ‘authentic’. Whatever that means. Ridley Scott’s Gladiator had New Zealand born Russell Crowe play a Spaniard with an English accent. I think this will be okay.

The Odyssey is a movie – it’s not supposed to be a historically accurate educational video. There’s a gigantic Cyclops in it. We live in an era where everyone has a platform to gripe – and everyone is griping.

Hollywood has been making historical epics for 100 years and they don’t have to be historically accurate. They’re probably better if they’re not. Throw in the fact that this is also a fantasy picture, and you sure as hell don’t need everyone speaking Ancient Greek with their togas dyed the correct shade of yellow.

I just want The Odyssey to be entertaining – and if it manages to be half as good something like the far-fetched and very historically inaccurate Jason And The Argonauts, then I’ll be very happy. That 1963 film was based on The Argonautica by Apollonius Rhodius, written around 238 BC, while The Odyssey is based on Homer’s epic poem, penned somewhere between 750 and 650 BC.

Matt Damon leads the cast as Odysseus, while Anne Hathaway, Tom Holland, Robert Pattinson, Lupita Nyong’o, Zendaya, Charlize Theron and many other familiar faces co-star.

The Odyssey opens in cinemas on July 17, 2026.