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Matt Damon embarks on a dangerous journey home as Odysseus in the first trailer for Christopher Nolan’s highly anticipated new film “The Odyssey.”
The clip begins after the end of the Trojan War. “After years of war, no one could stand before my men and my home,” Damon says in voiceover over images of soldiers. Brief glimpses show Anne Hathaway as Penelope, Odysseus’ wife, and Tom Holland as her son Telemachus.
The trailer hints at the difficulties that await Odysseus on his journey across the sea, including the Cyclops Polyphemus and frighteningly harsh weather.
Dangerous homecoming after the Trojan War
The Odyssey, an adaptation of Homer’s famous Greek epic, was directed by Christopher Nolan and stars Matt Damon, Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Robert Pattinson, Lupita Nyong’o, Zendaya and Charlize Theron. The cinema release is scheduled for July 17, 2026.
“There’s a little bit of everything in it,” Christopher Nolan recently told Empire about his desire to adapt the sprawling story. “I mean, it really has all the stories. As a filmmaker, you look for gaps in film culture, for things that haven’t been done yet. And what I saw was that all of this great mythological film work that I grew up with – Ray Harryhausen films and others – was never realized with the weight and credibility that an A-budget and a big Hollywood IMAX production can achieve.”
Nolan on mythology and cinematic vision
Christopher Nolan also revealed that he and his team shot more than two million feet of footage over 91 days, with much of the production taking place offshore. “It’s huge and scary and wonderful and benevolent, depending on how the conditions change,” he explained. “We really wanted to capture how hard these journeys must have been for people. And the leap of faith they took in an unmapped, unexplored world.”
Christopher Nolan also recently released a six-minute prologue to “The Odyssey” in select IMAX theaters ahead of screenings of “Sinners,” “One Battle After Another” and James Cameron’s “Avatar: Fire and Ash.” According to Variety, the prologue shows, among other things, shots of the famous Trojan Horse landing in Troy and Odysseus leading his army to victory.