LOS ANGELES: Twenty years before taking on The Odyssey, filmmaker Christopher Nolan was approached to direct the 2004 epic Troy,and he says the world of Homer’s Greek legends has fascinated him ever since.
“I was originally hired by Warner Bros to direct Troy,” Nolan told Empire. “Wolfgang (Petersen) had developed it, and when the studio decided not to proceed with his superhero movie (Batman vs Superman), he wanted it back.”
The Oscar-winning director explained that his desire to explore Homer’s epic had been simmering for years.
“At the end of the day, it was a world that I was very interested to explore. So it’s been at the back of my mind for a very long time. Certain images, particularly, how I wanted to handle the Trojan horse, things like that,” the Interstellar director said.
Nolan told Empire that Warner Bros took Troy back to hand it to Petersen, and subsequently offered him Batman Begins as a “consolation prize”.
Troy was eventually directed by Wolfgang Petersen and starred Brad Pitt, Eric Bana, Sean Bean, Diane Kruger, Brian Cox, Brendan Gleeson, Rose Byrne, Saffron Burrows, and Orlando Bloom.
Nolan’s most recent film was the 2023 epic biographical thriller Oppenheimer, based on the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the American theoretical physicist who helped develop the atomic bomb during the Second World War.
The Odyssey is scheduled for release on 17 July 2026 and will feature Matt Damon, Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Zendaya, Lupita Nyong’o, Robert Pattinson, Charlize Theron, and Jon Bernthal, among others.