First Image From Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” Reveals Matt Damon as Odysseus
Matt Damon had a meaty role in Christopher Nolan‘s Oscar-winning Oppenheimer, playing Leslie Groves, the United States Army Corp of Engineers officer who directed the Manhattan Project, cherry-picking Robert J. Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) despite the government’s concerns about his loyalties. As great as Damon was, it was Murphy’s movie—he had the title role, after all—but now it seems it’s Damon’s turn. A new image released on X reveals that in Nolan’s latest, The Odysseus, Damon is playing the man himself, Odysseus, and he’ll be leading a mythically good cast.
Damon is joined by Tom Holland, Mia Goth, Zendaya, Anne Hathaway, Lupita Nyong’o, Robert Pattinson, Charlize Theron, Benny Safdie, Jon Bernthal, and John Leguizamo, all in undisclosed roles. It’s fun to guess who might play who (Charlize Theron as Penelope or Circe? Robert Pattinson as one of the vile suitors? Benny Safdie as Polyphemus?). We won’t know who’s who for a bit, but at least we’ve got this shot of Damon:
Matt Damon is Odysseus. A film by Christopher Nolan, #TheOdysseyMovie is in theaters July 17, 2026. pic.twitter.com/7a5YbfqVfG
— odysseymovie (@odysseymovie) February 17, 2025
Homer’s 2,000-year-old epic follows Odysseus’s decade-long, torturous journey home following the Trojan War, when the hero is aiming to reunite with his wife Penelope and son Telemachus on his island of Ithaca but is stopped again and again by cruel fate, which in those times was controlled by powers a little less random. The cunning warrior is routinely thwarted by the Gods, who throw all manner of horrors his way. Odysseus eventually loses every member of his crew; the one-eyed Polyphemus eats some of them, others are killed in a battle with the Ciconians and Laestrygonians, and six are eaten by the six-headed monster Scylla. At one point, Odysseus is waylaid by the goddess Circe for a year on her island of Aeaea. As we’ve mentioned in the past, if you’re looking for a good, modern translation of the book, we suggest Emily Wilson’s “The Odyssey,” which is crystalline and vibrant—she writes it in iambic pentameter verse—yet still retains the subtle weirdness of Homer’s tale.
Nolan and his team, including his longtime cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema, are using brand-new Imax film technology for the film, which will be shot on location in places like the Sicilian island Favignana, also known as “Goat Island,” where scholars believe Odysseus came ashore with his crew to feast on barbecued goats. Nolan will once again direct from a script he wrote and is producing alongside his wife and producing partner, Emma Thomas.
The Odyssey is Damon’s third collaboration with Nolan, after Oppenheimer and Interstellar.
