Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey reveals first look at Matt Damon in character as Odysseus

The man just wants to go home.

When it comes to epic filmmaking, Christopher Nolan has carved himself out as an ambitious, uncompromising director who always aims for something big and sprawling.

You don’t get more a wider scale than the story of Homer’s The Odyssey.

Revealed as the secret project Nolan has been working on, the production has now released the first image of lead star Matt Damon in his full Ancient Greek get-up. He’s pulling off the look better than Joey Tribbiani in his Caesar’s Palace costume.

Damon will play Odysseus, the titular hero of Homer’s poem, as he travels home from Troy to Ithaca. The Trojan War has already kept him away for a decade and the journey back will take another 10 years because of a tiff with the god Poseidon.

Along his treacherous expedition, he encounters a variety of threats, including cyclops, captivity, and the witch-goddess Circe.

Meanwhile, his wife Penelope is fending off suitors back home while his son Telemachus is off on his quest in trying to locate his missing father.

Damon is the only cast member whose role has been confirmed but the rest of the ensemble includes Tom Holland, Robert Pattinson, Zendaya, Lupita Nyong’o, Anne Hathaway, Charlize Theron, Eliot Page, Benny Safdie, Himesh Patel, Bill Irwin, Samantha Morton and Mia Goth.

Pattinson, Hathaway, Page and Safdie have all previously worked with Nolan.

Chatter about Nolan’s next film had been bubbling for months with the A-list cast revealed before what the story would be about. It was only in late December that The Odyssey was revealed to be the basis of the story.

Dating back to 8th century BCE, The Odyssey has been a rich vein for modern storytellers to adapt.

There have been straightforward adaptations such as the 1954 Kirk Douglas film Ulysses and the 1997 TV miniseries The Odyssey.

But it’s also been the inspiration for films including Cold Mountain (adapted from the Charles Frazier book) and the Coen Brothers’ O Brother, Where Art Thou? which recast the story as a comedic satire set in the American South in the 1930s, following three escaped convicts played by George Clooney, John Turturro and Tim Blake Nelson.

The Simpsons even told the story of The Odyssey in the episode “Tales from the Public Domain” in which Homer is Odysseus and Marge is Penelope.

Nolan’s film is expected to start production this month and is due in cinemas in 2026.

The Odyssey is a continued collaboration between Nolan and Universal Pictures after the success of Oppenheimer.

Oppenheimer, boosted by the cultural phenomenon of Barbenheimer, grossed close to $US1 billion at the global box office and won seven Oscars including picture, director for Nolan, lead actor for Cillian Murphy and supporting actor Robert Downey Jr.

Nolan was previously a mainstayer for 20 years at Warner Bros where he made films including the Dark Knight trilogy, Dunkirk, Inception and Interstellar.

However, Nolan made a public break with Warner Bros during the Covid pandemic over a tussle about theatrical releases. Nolan had his film, Tenet, lined up and ready to go when the pandemic hit and, after some behind-the-scenes skirmishes, it ended up being one of the first films released back into cinemas in August 2020.

The following year, Warner Bros, then under the leadership of Jason Kilar, announced it would release its entire 2021 slate of cinema films on its streaming platform on the same date.

It was an industry disaster as filmmakers, actors and artists revolted over the decision, among them Nolan who is known for championing the theatrical experience.

Warner Bros tried to lure him back for his Oppenheimer follow-up and even though Nolan has previously said his beef with WB was “water under the bridge”, he opted to stay with Universal.

Nolan is a rarity in Hollywood as a household-name director who commands large box office takings, fan devotion and critical praise.