Christopher Nolan reveals he used ‘over two million feet of film’ to shoot The Odyssey in open water
Christopher Nolan has shared a fresh update on The Odyssey, his much-anticipated 13th feature film. The director is adapting Homer’s epic poem, following Odysseus — played by Matt Damon — on his long, perilous journey home after the Trojan War.
In a new interview with Empire, Nolan said the scale of the story pushed him to go bigger than ever. “We shot over two million feet of film,” he revealed about the 91-day shoot. A large part of that filming took place at sea, where Odysseus’ journey unfolds. “It’s pretty primal!” Nolan said. “I’ve been out on it for the last four months. We got the cast who play the crew of Odysseus’ ship out there on the real waves, in the real places. And yeah, it’s vast and terrifying and wonderful and benevolent, as the conditions shift.”
He added that working on open water changed the way the story was told. “We really wanted to capture how hard those journeys would have been for people. And the leap of faith that was being made in an unmapped, uncharted world.”
For Nolan, shooting practically was the only way to make this film. “By embracing the physicality of the real world in the making of the film, you do inform the telling of the story in interesting ways,” he said. “Because you’re confronted on a daily basis by the world pushing back at you.”
About the film
The Odyssey premieres on July 17, 2026, in IMAX. The film features an ensemble cast including Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Zendaya, Lupita Nyong’o, Robert Pattinson, Charlize Theron, Jon Bernthal, Benny Safdie, John Leguizamo, Elliot Page, Himesh Patel, Bill Irwin, Samantha Morton, Jesse Garcia, Will Yun Lee, Rafi Gavron, Shiloh Fernandez, Mia Goth and more.
