Are you prepared for The Odyssey? Whether or not it is the battle for tickets on a consistently crashing web site or a head-scratching memento popcorn bucket, the Christopher Nolan adaptation has the web in a frenzy.
Nolan’s swords-and-sandals blockbuster, which hits theaters nationwide on July 17, is an adaptation of Homer’s historic Greek poem and options an A-list forged, led by Matt Damon as Odysseus, the heroic king who embarks on a treacherous journey house following the Trojan Conflict. Anne Hathaway, Tom Holland, Robert Pattinson, Lupita Nyong’o, Charlize Theron, Zendaya, Jon Bernthal, Mia Goth, Travis Scott and Elliot Web page are additionally on the epic’s star-studded roster.
Filmed in six international locations over a 91-day shoot that produced greater than 2 million ft of movie, Nolan’s The Odyssey has confirmed to be fairly the venture. With a runtime of two hours and 52 minutes, the upcoming epic, which had an estimated finances of $250 million, is Nolan’s second-longest movie of his profession.
“It was an enormous endeavor, unquestionably,” Nolan advised the New York Instances. “I do not assume I’d have felt able to tackle this movie till now.”
Yahoo has rounded up every part there may be to learn about Nolan’s adaptation of The Odyssey — from the discourse across the popcorn bucket to what the forged has stated about engaged on the movie and extra.
A battle for tickets
Moviegoers hoping to attain tickets to Nolan’s fantasy epic have launched into journeys of their very own, encountering marathon wait occasions and crashing web sites. When tickets for opening weekend 70mm IMAX screenings went on sale in June, followers reportedly skilled hours-long waits and “a bottleneck of visitors” on malfunctioning ticketing websites, together with AMC Theatres and Fandango, in keeping with the Wall Avenue Journal.
“Because it seems, for Christopher Nolan’s a lot awaited The Odyssey, AMC recorded our highest first-day ticket gross sales for any studio-released film title since 2022,” AMC Theatres CEO Adam Aron stated in an announcement on the time. “My apologies when you encountered a protracted ticketing line on the AMC website and app yesterday. Luckily, we nonetheless have MILLIONS extra obtainable seats so that you can catch what is bound to be a worldwide phenomenon.”
The Odyssey additionally broke data when preliminary presale tickets went on sale in 2025. In simply 24 hours, round 150,000 tickets had been bought and $3.4 million was generated in gross sales, the best in 4 years, in keeping with Selection.
Scalpers have additionally been fast to resell opening weekend tickets. Tickets that had been initially bought for round $30 at the moment are being bought for lots of to hundreds of {dollars}.
Holland, Pattinson and Damon gush about The Odyssey
You realize you are a legend when three of Hollywood’s greatest stars are singing your praises. Holland, Pattinson and Damon, who every seem on the quilt of GQ’s June situation, had been fast to gush about their expertise working with the critically acclaimed director and his crew.
“I feel coming from the Marvel house, and I feel this can upset Marvel slightly bit — his degree of preparation is in contrast to something I’ve ever seen,” Holland advised GQ. “There’s not a single query you possibly can ask him that he cannot reply instantly. He is additionally fairly easy in the best way that he works. There are occasions after they use fancy digicam methods and issues like that, however he actually does come to set and he finds the shot.”
The Spider-Man: Model New Day star echoed this sentiment throughout an episode of Good Cling With Amy Poehler in June, throughout which he was requested about Nolan, his costars and the making of the movie.
“It was only a masterclass in persistence, professionalism and confidence in themselves,” Holland stated of his costars.
Whereas Pattinson would not have an enormous function in The Odyssey, his remains to be noteworthy. The Batman star portrays Antinous, a suitor pursuing Odysseus’s spouse, Penelope, performed by Hathaway.
“My character’s slightly like James Woods in On line casino. That was my inspiration for it,” Pattinson advised GQ. “I believed it might be fairly good to see it in Ithaca. And he is like slightly sleazy. I stored saying at my costume becoming, I used to be like, ‘I actually wish to have leopard underpants.‘ I wish to have it simply popping out of my skirt, slightly sparkly fur.”
For Damon, The Odyssey marked a uncommon alternative in his profession. The A-lister, who turns 56 this yr, advised GQ that doing a film of this scale “on movie, in digicam” and “all on location” wasn’t one thing he may cross up, particularly as he will get older.
“The entire issues which may have been tough for me at an earlier level in my life weren’t tough. They grew to become enjoyable,” Damon stated of his expertise filming The Odyssey. “Like being moist and chilly was not a hardship. It was really one thing I felt actually fortunate to be experiencing. It felt short-term and like a present. So it was very unusual. It isn’t one thing I’ve ever skilled.”
Damon additionally advised Yahoo of working with Nolan: “He occurs to be one among my favourite writers, and folks do not give him loads of credit score for a way nice a author he’s. I feel as a result of he is such an distinctive director, it type of overshadows that work.”
Popcorn bucket backlash
Unveiling popcorn buckets for blockbuster movies is an ongoing phenomenon, so naturally The Odyssey obtained in on the motion. However followers had been stunned to see one of many movie’s selection buckets: a Trojan Horse that requires moviegoers to open a small, secret compartment to entry the popcorn. For context, in Homer’s epic, Odysseus got here up with the concept to construct an enormous Trojan Horse out of hole wooden to realize entry to Troy. The horse successfully infiltrated the town’s impenetrable partitions, permitting the Greeks to interrupt the decadelong stalemate and conquer Troy.
Whereas some followers argued this can be a popcorn bucket that would “really be used as ornament as soon as you are not utilizing it,” others questioned the design, calling it, in a nod to Zoolander, a popcorn bucket for ants that holds barely any popcorn.
Fortunately, there is a extra sensible popcorn bucket up for grabs: the restricted version IMAX bucket impressed by the identical digicam expertise Nolan used to movie the film. The bucket, which is formed like an IMAX15/655mm digicam, additionally contains a light-up viewfinder that exhibits imagery from The Odyssey.
Discovering ‘a niche within the tradition’
What compelled Nolan to adapt The Odyssey, of all issues? Properly, the choice was twofold for the Oscar-winning filmmaker.
“I used to be seeking to problem myself with a totally totally different sort of storytelling and I used to be in search of a niche within the tradition,” Nolan advised the New York Instances. “I am taking a look at Greek mythology, The Odyssey itself, why hasn’t it change into a part of fashionable cinema? That is very thrilling as a filmmaker.”
When capturing The Odyssey, Nolan relied closely on sensible results, bringing the movie’s forged and crew on a four-month shoot out on actual waves in actual our bodies of water to seize the primal nature of Odysseus’s journey and, as he advised Empire, the “leap of religion that was being made in an unmapped, uncharted world.”
“By embracing the physicality of the actual world within the making of the movie, you do inform the telling of the story in attention-grabbing methods,” he advised the outlet. “Since you’re confronted every day by the world pushing again at you.”
