The hotly anticipated first trailer for Christopher Nolan‘s next film, The Odyssey, has been released into the wild.
Universal has placed the trailer for the film — billed as a “mythic action epic” — in front of Jurassic Park Rebirth, which has its first screenings Tuesday evening.
The trailer wasn’t officially released online. Nolan prefers his trailers to be a cinematic experience, and the first teaser trailer for his Oscar-winning 2023 blockbuster Oppenheimer likewise debuted only released in theaters.
Yet, unfortunately for Universal and Nolan, smartphones exist. So almost immediately, the trailer popped up on X (and the resulting video is, needless to say, less than cinematic in quality). The Hollywood Reporter is not linking to the leaked trailer, though there’s a description of it below.
Releasing the trailer so early is a bit unusual, as The Odyssey is still filming and not being released until July of next year. But given the new Jurassic World film is expected to open to at least $100 million at the box office and represents Universal’s biggest and safest bet on its release docket for months, coupling Jurassic with the first push for Nolan’s big event film makes sense.
Given the adaption of the ancient Greek epic poem isn’t finished, it’s perhaps no surprise the resulting trailer is very much a teaser. The teaser opens with shots of a dark ocean along with the voiceover: “Darkness. Zeus’ law smashed to pieces. I’m without a king since my master died. He knew it was an unwinnable war. And then, somehow, he won it.”
Then the trailer shows a scene with Tom Holland as Odysseus’ son Telemachus having a conversation with an as-yet-unnamed character played by Jon Bernthal.
“I have to find out what happened to my father,” Telemachus says, to which Bernthal’s character says loudly to a room, “Who has a story about Odysseus? You? You have a story? Some say he’s rich. Some say he’s poor. Some said he perished. Some said he’s imprisoned.”
Then the trailer shows driftwood at sea with a man laying on it — presumably Matt Damon as the Greek king.
In addition, the celebrity-filled cast includes Anne Hathaway, Zendaya, Lupita Nyong’o, Robert Pattinson, Charlize Theron, and Mia Goth, among others.
The Odyssey has a budget of $250 million, which will make it the most expensive film of Nolan’s career. It will be shot entirely using IMAX cameras, making it the first film with a major scope to do so. While one is tempted to use the word “gamble” to describe the project, the billion-dollar success of Nolan’s atomic energy biopic a couple years back proved yet again he’s one of the few directors who can reliably open a film, and The Odyssey‘s epic scope and star-filled cast should prove a major draw.
The classic story follows the king of Ithaca as he undertakes a long and perilous journey home following the Trojan War. The original story has Odysseus encountering a succession of mythical beings such as the Cyclops Polyphemus, the Sirens, the enchantress Circe, and travels to the Underworld.
Filming got underway in February at locations in Greece, Morocco and Italy. The film is slated to be released July 17, 2026.
