An epic stretch - Christopher Nolan tries to conquer The Odyssey
Director Christopher Nolan is adapting Homer's The Odyssey into a blockbuster film starring Matt Damon. The project aims to blend a realistic, immersive aesthetic with the epic's supernatural elements.
Why it matters
It highlights the ongoing trend of high-budget cinematic reinterpretations of classical literature and the industry's reliance on established IP.
In a recent interview with the BBC, director Christopher Nolan talked about Hollywood's risk-averse behaviour. His answer to the ever creeping tide of unasked for remakes and retreads is to reimagine a 3,000 year old epic poem by Homer, The Odyssey.
But like Odysseus' men caught between a deadly whirlpool and monstrous sea creatures, Nolan is torn between his own quixotic quest to make the most realistic, immersive, Imax-ified version, while also somehow bringing this supernatural world of witches and warriors to life.
With a Nolan-esque story structure that folds in on itself with a litany of flashbacks, our anchor at the centre is grey and grizzled Matt Damon as Odysseus, a king forced to leave his queen, Penelope (Anne Hathaway,) and son, Telemachus (Tom Holland), to wage war for Agamemnon.
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