What with Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day, Pixar’s Toy Story 5, and Marvel’s Spider-Man: Brand New Day, 2026’s summer blockbuster season is looking stacked.
However, those titles are all going up against Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey. And if you thought the filmmaker was going to slow things down in terms of scale after his Oscar-winning Oppenheimer, think again.
He’s gone bigger by adapting the Homer’s ancient Greek epic poem, with an all-star cast featuring Matt Damon, Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Zendaya, Lupita Nyong'o, Robert Pattinson, Charlize Theron... The list goes on, so we’ll stop there.
Sorry Jon Bernthal, Mia Goth and the wooden horse. You're in our thoughts.
Oh, lest we forget, and as if it wasn’t already one of the most anticipated movies of 2026: The Odyssey is the first film shot entirely on IMAX cameras and is Nolan’s biggest budget yet, with a reported $250m price tag.
Now, the latest trailer has dropped online, showcasing a very bearded Damon as Odysseus, the King of Ithaca making the long (and treacherous) journey home following victory in the Trojan War.
We get shots of Theron as Calypso, Hathaway as Penelope and Pattinson as the scheming Antinous who mocks Odysseus’ son, Telemachus (Holland).
Aesthetically speaking, the trailer is shrouded in darkness (let's hope the finished article won't be as murky looking), but it does give us a first look at the Cyclops, as well as the cutest little pup you ever did see at the 2-minute mark.
Check it out below:
In a new interview with Stephen Colbert's The Late Show, Nolan noted that the Homeric epics have inspired many modern blockbusters – specifically modern comic book narratives.
"Even comic-book culture, whether you're talking about Marvel or DC or the rest, a lot of it comes pretty directly from the Homeric epics," he noted. "The thing about Homer is it's the Marvel of its day, I mean, that's the thing, and so I think there's very directly this desire for us to feel or believe that Gods can walk amongst us, and I think the modern comic book is kind of our expression of that."
He added: "The thing about Homer is nobody knows if that was a person, they don’t know, I mean, Homer, in a way, is the sort of George Lucas, maybe of his time. I mean, nobody really knows who this person was or whether it was more than one person."
The Odyssey hits cinemas worldwide on 17 July, on the same day as Marvel’s Spider-Man: Brand New Day, also starring Tom Holland. Anyone ready for a 'Brand New Odyssey' double-bill? A 'Hollandyssey'?
