Christopher Nolan heading to Peloponnese
with A-list cast for ‘The Odyssey’
Award-winning British-American filmmaker Christopher Nolan will be shooting key scenes of his big-screen adaptation of Homer’s Odyssey in the Peloponnese next month, with Hollywood star Matt Damon playing the ancient Greek hero trying to get back home from Troy.
The filming of the big-budget epic by the director of such visual extravaganzas as “Oppenheimer,” “Dunkirk,” “Inception” and “The Dark Knight,” will feature iconic locations like Methoni Castle and Voidokilia beach in the region of Messinia, as well as the archaeological site of the palace of Acrocorinth in Corinth.
Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Charlize Theron, Zendaya, Robert Pattison, Elliot Page and Mia Goth complete the main cast of A-listers.
Slated for release in the summer of 2026, Nolan’s “Odyssey” is produced by Universal Pictures, in partnership, for the Greek leg of filming, with NAF, a subsidiary of Faliro House Productions.
The most recent film to join the roster of productions inspired by Homer’s extraordinary account of the hero’s tumultuous 10-year journey to Ithaca was last year’s “The Return” starring Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche.
The project has, unsurprisingly, caused a buzz of excitement in the Peloponnese, where locals turned out in their hundreds in the city of Kalamata for a casting call for extras earlier this month.
Equally predictably, it has also already come under fire from history buffs for accuracy following the release of the poster showing Damon wearing a type of helmet – a metal affair with a big red broom at the top – that was not in use at the time when “The Odyssey” is set and does not adhere to Homer’s own description of the hero’s headgear.
As one frustrated user commented on X, “The Iliad literally describes Odysseus wearing a kino leather helmet adorned with boar tusks, but Hollywood can never resist the siren song of the generic ancient broom helmet.”
Source: ekathimerini.com
