Nolan’s Odyssey film just got a CinemaCon presentation that made Hollywood’s jaw drop. Christopher Nolan walked onto the Colosseum stage and basically said “I know you liked Oppenheimer, but what if I shot an ancient Greek epic entirely in IMAX?” The man got a standing ovation before he even showed footage, which is the kind of power you earn when your last movie wins seven Oscars and makes a billion dollars.
The Odyssey film stars Matt Damon as Odysseus, and the first footage showed him shirtless on a beach with a full beard, looking like he just finished a CrossFit session with the gods. He’s trapped with Calypso, the goddess who won’t let him leave her island, and he can’t even remember his own family. “Did I have a wife? Children? Maybe a son?” he asks, and the heartbreak is real even through the IMAX resolution.
Nolan’s Odyssey film also features Anne Hathaway as Penelope and Tom Holland as Telemachus, because apparently Nolan looked at the casting pool and said “give me everyone.” The ensemble includes Zendaya, Lupita Nyong’o, Robert Pattinson, Jon Bernthal, and so many others that Nolan joked the stage would collapse if he brought them all. “It’ll be quicker for me to tell you who isn’t in the movie,” he said, and I believe him.
The Trojan Horse sequence looks absolutely bonkers. Thousands of Greeks pulling a massive wooden horse into Troy, soldiers plunging swords into it to check for enemies, blades slicing into people’s bodies while they try to stay silent. Nolan called it “an absolute nightmare to film—but in all the right ways.” The Odyssey film shot across Greece, Morocco, Italy, Iceland, and Scotland, because apparently one country wasn’t epic enough.
What makes Nolan’s Odyssey film special is that it’s the first movie shot entirely with IMAX cameras. Not just the action scenes. Not just the big moments. The entire thing. Nolan spent years working toward this, starting with The Dark Knight when he was in his 30s, and now he’s finally achieved the dream. “As a boy, all I wanted to do was tell large-scale stories using that technology,” he said, and now he’s doing it with Greek gods and sea monsters.
The footage ended with Odysseus and his men facing down Polyphemus the cyclops, and the scale is staggering. This isn’t some CGI cartoon monster—this feels real, ancient, terrifying. The Odyssey film arrives July 17, 2026, and honestly, start lining up now.
See Nolan’s Odyssey film in IMAX July 17 and witness the epic that redefines cinematic scale.
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