Given its apparently massive scope and the fact that director Christopher Nolan’s last movie, Oppenheimer, won star Cillian Murphy the Oscar for Best Actor among six other Academy Awards, The Odyssey might just present Matt Damon with his magnum-opus role. While the first trailer featured snippets of Odysseus’s 10-year-long journey home to Ithaca following the Trojan War, this trailer is more focused on his family.
His wife, Penelope (Anne Hathaway) is besieged by over a hundred arrogant suitors who are living in their palatial home uninvited under the assumption that Odysseus is dead. We’re introduced to borderline evil Ithacan suitor, Antinous (Robert Pattinson), who not only attempts to convince Penelope that her household needs him as master, but also calls Odysseus’s son, Telemachus (Tom Holland), “a sniveling bastard” who’s “pining for a daddy you didn’t even know.”
Many of the most famous sections of Homer’s ancient Greek epic—the witch turning Odysseus’s men into pigs, beckoning of an alluring bird-woman, and the fight with a Cyclops—aren’t shown, although the latter encounter is alluded to in the trailer’s tense final scene. The biggest action comes from seafaring scenes, especially one where Odysseus and his men must avoid the massive, ship-destroying “Charybdis” whirlpool.
This is Nolan’s 13th directorial feature, and he wrote the screenplay himself based on the ancient Greek poem. Produced by Emma Thomas under her and Nolan’s Syncopy, the film boasts a massive main cast that also includes Zendaya as goddess of wisdom, Athena; and Charlize Theron as goddess of witchcraft, Circe. Lupita Nyong’o, Jon Bernthal, Benny Safdie, John Leguizamo, Himesh Patel, Will Yun Lee, Mia Goth, Jimmy Gonzales, Elliot Page and Jovan Adepo are among dozens of other stars who are set to appear, according to Variety.
“The Odyssey” will make history as the first narrative film to be shot entirely with IMAX cameras—catch it in theaters on July 17. Watch the trailer below: