MOVIE NEWS – Christopher Nolan has released a new trailer for The Odyssey, bringing Homer’s foundational epic to IMAX screens with Matt Damon in the lead role. The fresh footage shows much more of Odysseus’ post-war journey, Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, and Charlize Theron’s characters, and finally reveals the terrifying Cyclops.
Academy Award winner Christopher Nolan has unleashed a stunning new trailer for The Odyssey, with the director bringing Homer’s Greek action-fantasy epic to life in the kind of grand, cinema-first style that only he can deliver. The Odyssey is a mythic action epic shot around the world using brand-new IMAX film technology, and it brings Homer’s foundational saga to IMAX screens for the first time. The film opens in theaters internationally on July 17, 2026, while some territories will see it slightly earlier. The new footage offers far more material than previous trailers and teasers, teasing the journey of the titular Odysseus as he moves from king and warrior to lost wanderer, searching for where he came from and who he really is.
Alongside revealing more of Odysseus’ journey, the footage also offers first glimpses at several key players in this epic tale. Tom Holland plays Odysseus’ son Telemachus, Anne Hathaway appears as Odysseus’ wife Penelope, and Charlize Theron takes the role of the nymph and Odysseus’ captor, Calypso. Robert Pattinson, John Leguizamo, and Elliot Page also appear in the trailer, forming only part of the massive ensemble Nolan has assembled. The new trailer finally reveals one of the most important mythical elements of The Odyssey: the Cyclops, who in the original story traps Odysseus and his men inside a cave before beginning to feast on them.
The Odyssey marks Nolan’s first real step into the truly fantastical, and the filmmaker has previously explained that he intends to bring elements such as the Cyclops and the Sirens to life “in a sort of real-world way.” This trailer gives the first serious hint of what that actually means. Terrifyingly, the Cyclops looks about as real as a giant one-eyed creature can. Standing around 30 feet tall, the monster holds one of Odysseus’ men as if he were nothing more than a snack. It appears and moves like a hulking human being, yet the unmistakable single eye at the center of its face pushes it firmly into mythic horror, placing the creature somewhere between the real world and a fantasy one. The sequence is already positioned as one of the film’s major highlights.
Following a path similar to its ancient source material, The Odyssey centers on Odysseus, king of Ithaca, as he embarks on a perilous journey home after the Trojan War. Matt Damon leads the film as Odysseus, but the rest of the cast requires a deep breath, because Nolan has gathered an A-list ensemble large enough to become an event in itself. The film features Tom Holland, known for Avengers: Infinity War and Spider-Man: Brand New Day, Anne Hathaway from Interstellar and The Dark Knight Rises, Charlize Theron from Monster and Mad Max: Fury Road, Benny Safdie from Good Time and Oppenheimer, Lupita Nyong’o from Black Panther and A Quiet Place: Day One, Robert Pattinson from The Batman and Mickey 17, and Zendaya from Spider-Man: No Way Home.
The cast does not stop there, either. Elliot Page, who previously worked with Nolan on Inception, joins the ensemble alongside Mia Goth from Pearl and Frankenstein, Corey Hawkins, Jon Bernthal, Cosmo Jarvis, Himesh Patel, Samantha Morton, John Leguizamo, Will Yun Lee, Logan Marshall-Green, and James Remar. Nolan is clearly not thinking small: The Odyssey aims not only to reinterpret one of Homer’s most essential stories, but to deliver a monumental theatrical experience where mythic adventure, the aftermath of war, the search for identity, and enormous cinematic spectacle all collide. Based on the new trailer, it already looks like one of the biggest movie events of 2026.
Source: MovieWeb
