LAS VEGAS – Speaking to the world’s theater owners at CinemaCon 2026, Christopher Nolan joked he was glad he wasn’t presenting after Steven Spielberg, who was waiting in the wings. Considering he was only the second star or talent to get a standing ovation after Tom Cruise the night before, he might have been a wee too humble. The now two-time Oscar winner was preceded by a highlight reel that showcased his already legendary 26-year career. Today, Nolan had a treat. The first extended look at “The Odyssey,” his new Universal Pictures blockbuster arriving this summer.
The footage begins with the Trojan Horse, lying on its side on a beach in the Mediterranean Sea. The Trojan Army finds it in the middle of the day, and hundreds of people begin to drag it up into the gated city of Troy. Not on a rolling platform, as in most cinematic depictions, but on its side. Dragged on the ground. Nolan cuts to inside the horse, where we find Odysseus (Matt Damon), Menelaus (Jon Bernthal), and other soldiers slamming against each other as they spend countless hours enduring a human battering ram for the chance to surprise their enemy.
By the time night falls, the horse is in the City. A Trojan soldier takes his sword and pokes through the statue, making sure no one is inside. The soldiers avoid each deadly poke until it rips into the back of one of them, and they cover his mouth to quiet his screams. Believing they have captured a trophy, the Trojans celebrate and pull the giant wooden horse up on its legs, leaning it against a temple building.
The crowds disperse, and only a few soldiers are guarding the horse. Odysseus makes his move, opening their trap and quickly taking out the Trojan guards. The Greek soldiers make their way to the main gate, but are discovered while they attempt to unlock it. As they fight off the Trojans, they finally open the gate and, in dramatic effect, hundreds of Greek soldiers swarm inside the city of Troy. Their plan has worked masterfully.
The sequence shown was likely edited down somewhat from the final film, but it promises old-school, epic filmmaking through Nolan’s imaginative cinematic eye.
The preview then flashes to years later, where Odysseus, with a white beard, has woken up or returned to a beach, and Calypso (Charlize Theron) looks at him sceptically. He wonders how long he’s been gone. Is his wife (Penelope, played by Anne Hathaway) still alive? How old would his son (Telemachus portrayed by Tom Holland) be now? The montage then finds Odysseus and Telemachus at a dinner hosted by Menelaus, who decidedly invites the son to sit next to him, not his former brother-in-arms. The rest of the montage cut quite quickly, but there was a slight hint of Greek gods and magical creatures amongst the footage.
Before unveiling the film, Nolan joked, “It would be quicker for me to tell you who isn’t in The Odyssey.” But then revealed that Damon, Holland, and Hathaway are at the core of his adaptation of Homer’s epic poem. He added it centers on “this idea of family, this idea of homecoming.”
Nolan also confirmed that this movie is something he’s wanted to pull off for decades. Since he first saw IMAX films at the Science Museum in Chicago as a teenager, he’s always wanted to make a movie completely in IMAX, but it was seemingly impossible in the large screen format due to several inherent factors, thanks to the large, loud camera. He told IMAX he was waiting for the company to design cameras and software that would allow them to shoot intimate scenes without needing to dub the dialogue. Now, a “long-standing dream of mine” has come true.
Before leaving the stage, Nolan noted, “We’re almost finished. We’re almost there. And theater owners are the people who are going to bring this story to our audience. I want to thank you in advance. Without you and your incredible screens, none of this is worth doing.”
Cue the applause.
“The Odyssey” opens nationwide on July 17
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