Christopher Nolan’s ambitious adaptation of The Odyssey is drawing attention as he tackles the daunting task of translating Homer’s ancient epic into a modern blockbuster, with Matt Damon stepping into the complex role of Odysseus. As anticipation builds for Nolan’s first project after the Oscar-winning Oppenheimer, experts caution that the Christopher Nolan Odyssey adaptation challenges could significantly impact how faithfully the film brings the legendary tale to life.
Navigating an Ancient Epic: Nolan Takes on Homer’s Tale
Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is his next film after the critically acclaimed Oppenheimer, and expectations are high as he ventures into the epic territory of Greek mythology. The casting of Matt Damon as Odysseus, along with glimpses of Tom Holland in ancient Greek armor, have fueled speculation and excitement among fans.
However, adapting Homer’s poem, which was originally composed around the early seventh century B.C.E., is a formidable undertaking. Unlike stories designed for modern audiences, The Odyssey originated more than 2,700 years ago in oral tradition, intended to help people make sense of the world and their place within it.
Gregory Nagy, Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature and Comparative Literature at Harvard University, is recognized for his deep scholarship on Homeric epics. In a recent discussion, Nagy shared insights into how early audiences understood The Odyssey and the immense challenges facing any filmmaker seeking to bring it to cinematic life.
Epic Scale Versus Narrative Purpose: The Heart of The Odyssey
The Odyssey is filled with dramatic events such as Odysseus confronting supernatural creatures, navigating the whims of deities, and enduring a relentless journey home. While these elements may seem tailor-made for a visually stunning blockbuster, Nagy emphasizes that compressing over 12,000 poetic lines into a feature film format risks losing much of the source material’s deeper intent.
Nagy explained,
“what we think of as plot is very different.”
— Gregory Nagy, Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature and Comparative Literature, Harvard University. He also noted that,
“can’t even deal with traditional myth without thinking of the traditional society that generated the myth.”
— Gregory Nagy, Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature and Comparative Literature, Harvard University. According to him, the original context of The Odyssey was far removed from modern cinematic spectacle.
He continued,
“what almost everybody can agree on is that it’s a very good narrative.”
— Gregory Nagy, Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature and Comparative Literature, Harvard University. The epic originally functioned to explain how the universe operates—a meditation on fate, divine intervention, and human resilience. Nagy stated,
“Imagine a situation where a traditional society has a view of the cosmos … this tells [us] about the workings of [it.]”
— Gregory Nagy, Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature and Comparative Literature, Harvard University.
The historical context is also notable; as Nagy pointed out,
“There’s no technology or writing in the making of any of this,”
— Gregory Nagy, Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature and Comparative Literature, Harvard University. The oral tradition valued narrative as a means not just of entertainment, but of understanding a complex and unpredictable world.
“I’ll say ‘narrative’, because if we say ‘story’, it’s something that we don’t have to accept as truth.”
— Gregory Nagy, Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature and Comparative Literature, Harvard University.
The challenge for Nolan will be balancing blockbuster demands with the philosophical core that defined Odysseus’ journey for Homer’s audience.
Matt Damon as Odysseus: Blessing or Mismatch?
Matt Damon’s casting as Odysseus was met with a measured reaction from Nagy, who said simply, “Okay, fine.” — Gregory Nagy, Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature and Comparative Literature, Harvard University. While Damon undoubtedly brings star power to the screen, Nagy raised questions about whether any contemporary actor can authentically represent the character’s deep complexity.
He remarked,
“The character of Odysseus is very complex.”
— Gregory Nagy, Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature and Comparative Literature, Harvard University. In The Odyssey, Odysseus spends two decades away from Ithaca, first fighting at Troy for ten years, then struggling for another decade to return home. Nagy observed,
“Odysseus is 20 years away from home in terms of the narrative,”
— Gregory Nagy, Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature and Comparative Literature, Harvard University. Upon his return, both he and his wife Penelope would be middle-aged or older, yet in the myth, cosmic forces transform Odysseus’ appearance, allowing him to appear as a youthful bridegroom — an effect that may be difficult to convey with an established leading man like Damon.
Nagy elaborated,
“And yet, it’s very important in the Odyssey as I study it,”
— Gregory Nagy, Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature and Comparative Literature, Harvard University. He described the moment Odysseus reunites with Penelope, noting,
“that when Odysseus gets back together with Penelope, he becomes so good-looking that he looks like a 20-year-old bridegroom, and even his son says, ‘Wow, Dad. I can’t believe it.’ He looks like the sun, practically. There’s so much cosmic intervention.”
— Gregory Nagy, Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature and Comparative Literature, Harvard University.
The process of disguise is also central to Odysseus’ story. Nagy stated,
“he should look the same when he lands at Ithaca as when he finally is recognized, but even when he’s disguised as a beggar, the whole point is he’s gone from the highest in the social scale – which is the king – all the way to as low as you can go. In terms of traditional societies, he should be despised as an inferior human.”
— Gregory Nagy, Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature and Comparative Literature, Harvard University. This tension between identity, status, and perception may prove a particular challenge in the transition from epic poetry to visual storytelling.
As Nagy summed up,
“The big lesson is that he is – may I put it this way – beautiful on the inside, but ugly on the outside. And when he finally becomes the ‘real’ Odysseus, then he’s beautiful on the inside and outside, supposedly.”
— Gregory Nagy, Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature and Comparative Literature, Harvard University. The ability to convey this transformation convincingly, especially with a universally recognized actor at the helm, might be one of the greatest obstacles facing Nolan and his team.
Addressing Dark Moral Questions: War Crimes in Homer’s Epic
Beyond the myth’s cosmic and personal complexities, Gregory Nagy pointed to an especially thorny issue: Odysseus’ involvement in morally questionable acts. He asked,
“And then, there [is] the problem of war crimes. How is the movie going to handle that?”
— Gregory Nagy, Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature and Comparative Literature, Harvard University.
Odysseus’ actions include episodes that wouldn’t meet modern standards of heroism. Nagy asserted he
“can prove to you that even The Odyssey is aware of a very, very questionable few moments in Odysseus’ life.”
— Gregory Nagy, Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature and Comparative Literature, Harvard University. One event referenced involves the killing of a child in the course of war:
“where he actually kills a child in war. How do you like that? And what are we going to do with it? Is Matt Damon going to kill a kid?”
— Gregory Nagy, Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature and Comparative Literature, Harvard University. He further inquired,
“How the hell are you going to do that in a movie?”
— Gregory Nagy, Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature and Comparative Literature, Harvard University.
Nagy pointed to the moment Odysseus interacts with the Phaeacians, noting that Odysseus delays revealing his true identity and responds with emotion during a retelling of Trojan War events.
“He’s this total stranger who’s washed up onshore, but the royalty is suspecting he’s an important guy,”
— Gregory Nagy, Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature and Comparative Literature, Harvard University, and
“so they don’t ask who he is; they just give him a very fancy dinner.”
— Gregory Nagy, Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature and Comparative Literature, Harvard University. Eventually, Odysseus hears a minstrel recount,
“but he doesn’t really identify himself until a blind singer performs three songs … and [for] the last of the three songs, the disguised Odysseus says, ‘Could you sing the song of the tale of Troy?’ And, of course, he’s definitely a character in that, because he invented the Trojan Horse.”
— Gregory Nagy, Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature and Comparative Literature, Harvard University.
Describing the aftermath, Nagy explained,
“and we have plot outlines of how that happened–that when Troy finally is captured, Odysseus himself takes the child of Hector and Andromache, who are the nicest people in The Iliad … to the highest point in Troy, and throws the baby to his death.”
— Gregory Nagy, Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature and Comparative Literature, Harvard University. When that moment is retold for Odysseus,
“when the blind singer gets to the part where the boy is captured … and Odysseus is going to go up and commit a war crime, the narrative stops and says, ‘While Odysseus was listening to this, he started crying. He was weeping and weeping and weeping, just like a captive woman when her child was killed.”
— Gregory Nagy, Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature and Comparative Literature, Harvard University.
Nagy warned against contemporary assumptions of heroism:
“I spent all my life telling young people, ‘Don’t use the word hero”
— Gregory Nagy, Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature and Comparative Literature, Harvard University —
“the way we use it when you think about ancient heroes.’ Ancient heroes, unlike the way we use the word, are not admirable in morality all the time. They’re just larger than life. So when they’re moral [say] 90% of the time, fine, then we really admire them. But there’s always at least a 10%–I’m making up the percentages–[where] they do morally questionable [or] horrific things.”
— Gregory Nagy, Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature and Comparative Literature, Harvard University. The question of how Nolan’s film will handle this ambiguity remains open.
Learning from Past Adaptations: Troy’s Deviations from Homer
Nolan is not the first filmmaker to adapt ancient Greek epics, and previous examples show the dangers of straying too far from the source. Wolfgang Petersen’s 2004 film Troy, which starred a cast led by Brad Pitt as Achilles, was cited by Nagy as an adaptation that misunderstood key elements of Homer’s world.
Nagy remarked,
“[Petersen] followed the teachings of a very important archaeologist,”
— Gregory Nagy, Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature and Comparative Literature, Harvard University, but,
“but that guy had all sorts of theories that today’s archaeologists won’t accept anymore.”
— Gregory Nagy, Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature and Comparative Literature, Harvard University. He expressed skepticism about the film’s historical and narrative accuracy:
“To me, that film was hardly a reconstruction of what really happened.”
— Gregory Nagy, Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature and Comparative Literature, Harvard University.
The film’s visualization of Troy was particularly at odds with current archaeological thinking, as Nagy explained,
“imagined that what he was excavating wasn’t just the citadel, but essentially the outlying area, and that the whole thing was almost like a modern city dominated by a citadel.”
— Gregory Nagy, Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature and Comparative Literature, Harvard University. Nagy suggested that these choices were more theatrical than faithful.
One of the most significant departures from the epics was the removal of divine intervention. In Nagy’s words,
“This director, who’s a very smart person [and] very artistic, got so involved in the way this person reconstructed Troy as if the Homeric Iliad really were history, [and] naturally, one of the things that would happen is, ‘Well, then we can’t have gods … If The Iliad is history, let’s remove them.’”
— Gregory Nagy, Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature and Comparative Literature, Harvard University. As Homer’s works revolve around cosmic and divine influences, leaving out the gods altered the narrative’s original meaning, even if the resulting story remained compelling for some viewers. As Nagy put it,
“I don’t care… if it’s still gripping, fine.”
— Gregory Nagy, Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature and Comparative Literature, Harvard University.
Disney’s Hercules: Officially Family-Friendly but Mythologically Inaccurate
A discussion of adaptation also led Nagy to reflect on Disney’s 1997 animated classic, Hercules. He acknowledged,
“there [are] some beautiful things in it.”
— Gregory Nagy, Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature and Comparative Literature, Harvard University, but critiqued its mythological liberties. Nagy considered it absurd that the film makes both of Hercules’ parents gods:
“what’s really ridiculous… is that Herc–as he’s called in the movie–is the son of Zeus, but he’s not the son of Hera. For God’s sake, that’s the whole point.”
— Gregory Nagy, Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature and Comparative Literature, Harvard University.
He stated,
“Heroes have to have mortality in their genes. You can’t just have two certified immortal gods have a kid, because then there would be a constant overthrowing of gods.”
— Gregory Nagy, Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature and Comparative Literature, Harvard University. He further explained,
“Hercules is the son of a mortal woman,”
— Gregory Nagy, Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature and Comparative Literature, Harvard University —
“which means that he has to die too … the dominant gene is us, so all it takes is one mortal in your family tree, and you’re mortal–even if you’re descended from Zeus. So, that’s already a big disappointment, because Disney Studios can’t have an illegitimate child.”
— Gregory Nagy, Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature and Comparative Literature, Harvard University.
Nagy lamented,
“[In Disney’s Hercules,] Zeus and Hera are the real mom and dad, which means that the heroic status of Hercules is undermined.”
— Gregory Nagy, Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature and Comparative Literature, Harvard University. Still, he praised certain scenes, including a retelling of Meg’s story shown in silhouettes:
“There’s a retelling of a part of Meg’s life in silhouettes, in shadow theater,”
— Gregory Nagy, Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature and Comparative Literature, Harvard University —
“and that’s almost a perfect retelling of [the classic] tragedy The Trojan Woman, which is really about another phase of Heracles’ life… whoever did that 30-second retelling is a genius.”
— Gregory Nagy, Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature and Comparative Literature, Harvard University.
Although he noticed creative brilliance in elements of the film, Nagy suggested that Disney’s need for legitimacy and family-friendly storytelling shapes the company’s approach to ancient myths.
“And there are a lot of things like that in Disney films,”
— Gregory Nagy, Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature and Comparative Literature, Harvard University —
“So, maybe the studio had to have Herc as a legitimate child of Zeus and Hera, which kind of messes up the whole mythological cosmos. There are other things that are very moving and very deep. And I love the way [the Muses] look like the Supremes in their prime. It’s brilliant. Just drop dead brilliant.”
— Gregory Nagy, Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature and Comparative Literature, Harvard University.
Advice From an Expert: How to Adapt The Odyssey for Today’s Audience
As for advice to Christopher Nolan or any director undertaking the Christopher Nolan Odyssey adaptation challenges, Nagy had clear recommendations.
“I would take, especially dream sequences, [and] really have fun with how film can convey the meta-natural … I don’t like to say supernatural, but superhuman.”
— Gregory Nagy, Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature and Comparative Literature, Harvard University. He urged filmmakers not to judge ancient characters by present-day standards:
“If somebody commits a war crime, then you say, ‘Oh, you’re not my hero anymore,’ that’s crazy, because that’s expecting a hundred percent perfection of humans, which is exactly what this medium is exploring. We’re sort of purging our emotional being.”
— Gregory Nagy, Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature and Comparative Literature, Harvard University.
The real creative trick, Nagy advised, is to avoid “little-mindedness” and resist applying today’s moral frameworks to ancient narratives:
“Maybe the trick would be not to be too little-minded, and not to humor the ‘moral standards’ of today.”
— Gregory Nagy, Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature and Comparative Literature, Harvard University. The Odyssey’s complexity stems from both its characters and plot.
“If Odysseus is a complex character,”
— Gregory Nagy, Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature and Comparative Literature, Harvard University —
“you can figure that the plot of the Odyssey is also complex.”
— Gregory Nagy, Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature and Comparative Literature, Harvard University.
The task for Nolan, then, is not only to make ancient themes relatable, but also to preserve the epic’s nuance and depth. Encouragingly, Nolan’s reputation for innovative storytelling and layered narratives may suit this challenge well. As for the excitement surrounding the film, Nagy expressed his own anticipation:
“I love film, and so I will take anything.”
— Gregory Nagy, Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature and Comparative Literature, Harvard University.
The Road Ahead: Odyssey’s Release and Its Cinematic Promise
Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is scheduled for release on July 17, 2026. The cast includes Matt Damon as Odysseus, Tom Holland, Zendaya, and Anne Hathaway, offering high-profile portrayals set against the backdrop of an epic struggle between humanity, fate, and the divine.
As the release date approaches, attention will remain on whether Nolan’s vision can honor Homer’s intentions, confront the story’s moral and cosmic intricacies, and deliver a film that resonates with today’s audiences while staying true to the enduring power of The Odyssey. With the Christopher Nolan Odyssey adaptation challenges in clear focus, the film industry and fans alike await what could be one of the most daring cinematic interpretations of Greek mythology in recent memory.
