If you have been waiting years for Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, the good news is that the wait is over. The less good news, for anyone already planning their next Nolan outing, is that he is in no rush. Asked by TODAY on July 17 whether fans should expect another three-year gap before his next release, Nolan’s answer was blunt: “Oh, at least.”
What did Nolan say about his next movie?
Nolan told TODAY that his next film is “at least” three years away, mirroring the gap fans endured between Oppenheimer and The Odyssey. The comment came directly from the director rather than any studio announcement, which makes it about as firm a signal as you get from a filmmaker who does not do things quickly.
He framed the wait as a natural consequence of the scale involved. Nolan said The Odyssey pushed him to his limits, recalling that he warned Matt Damon early on that the shoot would be tough. “I have a feeling he didn’t really understand until we got on the boat,” Nolan said, describing Damon’s “slow creeping realization” once filming reached a goat’s path up to the cyclops’ cave. “It’s ‘The Odyssey,’ of course it should be difficult,” he added.
Is The Odyssey worth catching this weekend?
Early box-office tracking suggests The Odyssey could open to $200 million globally, a forecast TODAY attributes to Deadline. That is a big number for a nearly three-hour Homer adaptation, and it lines up with showings selling out months ahead of release.
The film is Nolan’s first since Oppenheimer, which won him his first Oscar and seven Academy Awards in total, so the appetite is understandable. Nolan pitched it as a genre-spanning epic — “a love story… a coming-of-age story… a story about war and homecoming” — starring Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, Lupita Nyong’o, Robert Pattinson, Zendaya, and Tom Holland. If you want the fuller picture before booking, our look at The Odyssey’s record previews and audience score is a good place to start, and the film’s runtime of 2 hours 53 minutes is worth knowing before you settle in.
Why the IMAX 70mm format matters
The Odyssey is billed as the first Hollywood production shot entirely on IMAX 70mm film, and that is the reason to think carefully about which screen you pick. Nolan told TODAY he needed the format to make audiences feel as though they were inside the cyclops’ cave or aboard Odysseus’ ship. CBS News has independently reported the same first — that The Odyssey is the first feature shot entirely on IMAX film — so the format claim holds up beyond the marketing.
Variety notes the film is being presented in multiple formats, from 70mm IMAX to premium large formats and select IMAX with Laser locations running an expanded 1.43:1 aspect ratio. Which of those a given cinema offers varies, so if you care about seeing it the way Nolan intended, check what your local IMAX is actually screening before you book. For a film built end to end on IMAX cameras, the screen you choose is the difference between the full effect and a scaled-down version of it.
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