Christopher Nolan's film "The Odyssey" is set to open in theaters on July 17, 2026, marking the first feature film shot entirely on IMAX cameras. The adaptation of Homer's epic poem is projected to open to between $90 million and $100 million from 3,900 North American theaters.

The film carries a production budget of $250 million, with Universal spending approximately $125 million to promote the release. IMAX is dedicating all of its screens to "The Odyssey" for an exclusive three-week run. The film has a runtime of three hours and has earned a 98% score on Rotten Tomatoes.

Matt Damon portrays Odysseus in the film, leading a large ensemble cast. Tom Holland portrays Telemachus as a young man, while Anne Hathaway portrays Penelope. Robert Pattinson portrays Antinous, Lupita Nyong'o portrays Helen of Troy, and Zendaya portrays Athena. Charlize Theron plays Calypso, Samantha Morton plays Circe, and Bill Irwin portrays the Cyclops.

Jon Bernthal, Elliott Page, Himesh Patel, and John Leguizamo also appear in the cast. The dialogue in the film is in contemporary American English. Nolan wrote the screenplay for the adaptation himself.

Homer's "The Odyssey" is an eighth-century B.C. epic poem. In the story, Penelope weaves a shroud for her father-in-law Laertes. Multiple translations of the poem have been published over the centuries, including versions by Robert Fagles, Robert Fitzgerald, and E.V. Rieu.

Recent publications include Emily Wilson's translation in 2017 and Stephen Fry's Odyssey in 2024. Madeline Miller wrote the novels The Song of Achilles and "Circe, while Margaret Atwood wrote the novella The Penelopiad in 2005.

Nolan stated he often looked at the E.V. Rieu translation of The Odyssey during the filmmaking process. Nolan previously won an Academy Award for Oppenheimer.

Interest in the source material has increased alongside anticipation for the film. Hold requests for the print book of The Odyssey increased 128 percent since last month. Over 1,500 digital copies of the ebook and audiobook of The Odyssey" are currently checked out.

"The Odyssey" represents a major technical milestone for cinema as the first feature film shot entirely on IMAX cameras. The exclusive three-week IMAX run and the combined investment in production and promotion reflect the scale of the theatrical release. The casting of multiple Academy Award winners and nominees signals the project's stature within the industry.

Critics have responded to the film's technical achievements and narrative scope. Guy Lodge, writing for Variety, described the film as "a genuinely grand, gutsy vision" that "thrills generously for the bulk of its near three-hour running time." He added, "Every few minutes, it seems, it throws at its audience another mighty set piece that, in almost any other summer studio spectacle, would be a climactic standout."

Lodge also wrote that "'The Odyssey' is a veritable banquet, then, of such loud, grandiose, movie-movie pleasures, so brashly, confidently lavish that it can afford to throw away a significant portion of its all-star cast on lily-gilding cameos." He noted, "There's so much to feel here at a sensory level that the film gets away with its slightly aloof, soul-skirting chill; we leave it feeling that we've been to hell and back, and exhilaratingly so."

David Fear, writing for Rolling Stone, stated, "Nolan and his behind-the-camera collaborators want to wow you." Fear wrote that what you tend to walk away with after bearing witness to "The Odyssey," arguably Christopher Nolan's best work after 2017's "Dunkirk," is an overall sensation of awe. He added, "It is one of the most dynamic movies in recent memory, simply in the way it attempts to — and largely succeeds — balance such incredible highs and delicate lows, deafening bursts of divine wrath with quiet pauses of contemplation, episodic moments of old-school Saturday-matinee fantasy with the sort of grounded interactions associated with smaller projects." Fear concluded, "You may have no idea how long you've been gone after you've seen it. You just know that you want to go back again."