A leaked copy of The Odyssey has been taken down from Elon Musk’s X platform but only after a post flagging it gained millions of views.
A high-quality pirated version of the film went viral at the weekend after an account linked to it saying “Someone uploaded ‘The Odyssey’ full movie on X. Can you believe it?”. The post flagging the film was viewed more than 3m times before the account hosting the apparently leaked film was suspended by X.
Christopher Nolan’s film has been a box office and critical hit since its release at the beginning of July, securing glowing reviews and more than $600m at the global box office. It is not known how the bootleg version of the near-three-hour film was obtained.
The leak does not appear to have dented The Odyssey’s box office performance. The film’s global takings have risen to $640m after it took $87m in the US on its second weekend of release, a decline of 30% on its opening weekend but still a sign of its holding power in the world’s largest cinema market by revenue.
In a statement, Universal said: “We became aware of the unauthorized posting of the film and immediately initiated takedown protocols. We take copyright infringement seriously and will pursue all appropriate remedies to protect our content and intellectual property rights.”
Musk, the owner of X, has been a vocal critic of The Odyssey, using its casting choices – such as Black actor Lupita Nyong’o as Helen of Troy – as vehicles for reciting familiar arguments about DEI culture via his own X account. Last week the worlds’ richest person said he would use his AI platform Grok Imagine to make a “historically accurate” adaptation of Homer’s epic poem.
Nolan has said the criticism of his casting choices “comes with the territory”: “These conversations that happen before people see the film – they’re always irrelevant, because no one having them knows what the film actually is yet.”
X has been contacted for comment.
