23 Behind-The-Scenes Facts You Probably Didn't Know About How The Odyssey Was Made

Christopher Nolan’s new film is his most ambitious to date.

After years of build-up, Christopher Nolan’s follow-up to the record-breaking Oppenheimer is finally here.

With an all-star cast, big budget and epic filming locations, The Odyssey is undoubtedly one of this year’s most anticipated movies.

Based on Homer’s epic Greek poem, the film follows Odysseus, King of Ithaca, on his 10-year journey home after the Trojan War. Along the way, he must battle mythical monsters, gods and extreme conditions to make it home to his loyal son and faithful wife.

So, how did Christopher Nolan go about bringing this classic text to life?

Well, by all accounts it was no easy task, but it sounds like it was all worth it, as The Odyssey is already being hailed as a cinematic triumph.

To celebrate the release, here are 23 behind-the-scenes facts about how The Odyssey was made…

Christopher Nolan has credited Oppenheimer’s success with helping him make his latest film the way he wanted

Oppenheimer was Nolan’s most successful film to date, both critically and commercially. The film grossed more than £70 million in its opening weekend and swept the 96th Academy Awards with seven wins, including Best Picture and Best Director.

As a result, he was able to shoot even higher with his next project.

“Coming out of Oppenheimer, which was a film that had far more success than we’d ever imagined, it leaves you with an opportunity,” he told The Independent.

“You have the chance to do something that you wouldn’t have otherwise. And so the scale of The Odyssey, and what that was gonna require, was suddenly possible.”

The Odyssey is a film Christopher Nolan has been thinking about making for more than 20 years

The story of The Odyssey first entered Christopher Nolan’s creative consciousness two decades ago, when he was attached to direct the 2004 Brad Pitt film, Troy.

Nolan had previously been set to helm the sword-and-sandals epic that adapted Homer’s “prequel” to The Odyssey, The Iliad, after its original director, Wolfgang Petersen, left production to make Batman vs Superman.

However, when that project fell apart, Petersen wanted to jump back on to making Troy, meaning Nolan was dropped as its director.

Ironically, Nolan then went on to make Batman Begins instead, but all along, it seems he’s never stopped thinking about the story of Troy.

“When I was briefly attached to direct Troy, I did a lot of thinking about the Trojan Horse and how I would portray that and make it credible,” he told The Independent. “I’ve had an image of that horse sinking into the sand in my head for 20 years.”

The Odyssey is Christopher Nolan’s movie shot entirely with IMAX cameras

Nolan is renowned for pushing boundaries when it comes to cinema, changing the world of modern filmmaking in the process.

The Odyssey is his first feature film to be shot entirely using IMAX cameras (he has worked with this technology before but has always struggled to use this technology in scenes with dialogue because of how loud the cameras are).

Not only is it his first film in this format, The Odyssey will also be the first commercial movie shot entirely on IMAX 70mm film cameras

“The Dark Knight was the first film where we were able to go to IMAX and say, ‘Lend us your cameras – let’s try this on things like the introduction of the Joker, the truck flip’,” Nolan told The Independent.

“But we couldn’t do the dialogue scenes because the cameras are very, very loud.”

He continued: “So, knowing we were doing The Odyssey, I went to IMAX and said, ‘Look, if ever we’re gonna do a whole film on IMAX, this is the movie to do it with’.”

The director then worked with film presentation pioneer David Keighley to develop lighter, quieter equipment which can handle dialogue-heavy scenes without drowning out the actors’ lines.

Back in 2023, the Inception director explained why IMAX is so important to him.

“The sharpness and the clarity and the depth of the image is unparalleled,” he enthused. “The headline, for me, is by shooting on IMAX 70 mm film, you’re really letting the screen disappear.

“You’re getting a feeling of 3D without the glasses. You’ve got a huge screen and you’re filling the peripheral vision of the audience. You’re immersing them in the world of the film.”

Quieter though they may have been, these IMAX cameras came with their own problems on set

Nolan has experience using IMAX cameras, but he faced a new challenge during The Odyssey due to the sheer size of the tech, leaving him tasked with placing one of the largest movie cameras available in a way that wouldn’t distract or obstruct the actors during the film’s most emotional moments.

“Of course, [that’s] terrible for an actor that you cannot play against the person you’re supposed to see,” said cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema to Time.

To counteract this, the team put up mirrors, allowing the actors to make eye contact with one another.

Plenty of care and research went into the way The Odyssey looks on camera (despite what certain critics might have suggested)

While avid fans of the classics would have you believe Nolan has taken a fast and loose approach to historical accuracy with The Odyssey, the director has maintained that a great amount of detail and research went into making it.

Afte the first trailer dropped in December 2025, some fans of mythology and history complained about Agamemnon’s armour being too dark and shiny for the era in which the story is set.

However, Nolan immediately shut down this criticism.

“There are Mycenaean daggers that are blackened bronze. The theory is they probably could have blackened bronze in those days. You take bronze, you add more gold and silver to it and then use sulfur,” he told Time in May.

“With Agamemnon, Ellen [Mirojnick], our costume designer, is trying to communicate how elevated he is relative to everyone else. You do that through materials that would be very expensive.”

He also provided thorough explanations for many other production choices, including the boats and weapons, which draw on inspiration from the Bronze Age.

“The oldest depictions of Homeric characters tend to be depicted in the manner of people living in Homer’s time,” he explained.

“So there’s a pretty strong case there for portraying things that way because that’s the way the first audience received the story.”

Christopher Nolan made the cast of The Odyssey watch three classic films before shooting began

It’s no secret that Christopher Nolan is a real cinephile, who draws inspiration from classic movies in his own filmmaking.

He told The Independent that before he began work on The Odyssey, he looked at certain films for “textures that might inspire us”, which he then screened for his cast to help encourage their own performances.

The first film on his list was Akira Kurosawa’s 1985 feudal epic Ran, which he called “such an incredible film”, praising its use of “landscape and wind, in particular”.

He explained: “We watched the film and thought, ‘Yeah, the banners flapping in the wind and everything – that’s an important part of what we’re doing’.”

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