Christopher Nolan adapts The Odyssey for IMAX release in 2026

Christopher Nolan has turned to Homer’s The Odyssey for a Universal Pictures release that will open in theaters and IMAX 70mm on July 17, with Matt Damon playing Odysseus. IMAX says the film was shot entirely with IMAX Film Cameras, and Universal has already launched an official trailer and ticketing campaign around it. The rollout places Nolan’s latest project squarely inside the business of spectacle as much as storytelling.

Nolan said he enjoys adaptation, and he treated Homer as a challenge because many viewers already know the basic story beats. That means the film has to create emotional payoff for audiences encountering Odysseus and his world for the first time, rather than simply reproduce the poem line by line. Nolan said he moved things around and took liberties with the source material so the movie could recreate the experience of reading or hearing the epic while still entertaining both longtime fans and newcomers.

That approach fits a career built on large-scale audience expectations. Nolan compared the problem to The Dark Knight trilogy, where he had to satisfy viewers steeped in Batman comics and people who had never picked up one. Time described The Odyssey as the first feature-length film shot entirely in IMAX and said Nolan used minimal CGI and maximum ambition, reinforcing the way the project has been framed as a premium-format event.

The Odyssey also arrives with a long screen history behind it. Variety pointed to Giuseppe de Liguoro’s 1911 silent film, the 1954 Kirk Douglas vehicle Ulysses, and Joel and Ethan Coen’s O Brother, Where Art Thou? as major previous retellings. That lineage helps explain why Nolan’s version is being treated less like a simple literary adaptation and more like a test of whether director-driven spectacle can still draw a broad theatrical audience.

IMAX has placed the film inside its 2026 slate and said it is one of the titles supporting its box office guidance for the year. With Universal backing a trailer, ticketing push and a July 17 theatrical launch, Nolan’s Odyssey has become a high-profile example of how studios are still willing to bet on mythic, prestige-scale filmmaking when the filmmaker and the format are both part of the sell.