It was once the case that movie stars were the ones who attracted people to the cinema.
In the case of The Odyssey, it’s the director.
This is despite the film being stacked with name after name after name of A-list talent.
Matt Damon, Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Robert Pattinson, Lupita Nyong’o, Zendaya, Charlize Theron … all megastars.
But the biggest star drawing people in is Academy Award-winning British American director Sir Christopher Nolan.
That’s according to Zak Hepburn, resident film critic for ABC News Breakfast.
Odysseus’s wife Penelope (Anne Hathaway) and son Telemachus (Tom Holland) await his return to Ithaca. (Supplied: Universal Pictures)
“There’s a popular theory that we’ve lost a lot of movie stars,” Hepburn says.
“That kind of Hollywood players gallery is being diminished somewhat.
“This is bringing it back.
“Because you look at a bunch of those older films where you have Jimmy Stewart, John Wayne, Dean Martin, all these Hollywood personalities which would pop up in these small roles, but they were all under the guidance of iconic directors.
“And I think that’s certainly where Christopher Nolan has positioned himself with this release.”
Zak Hepburn says Nolan has created a “filmic signature” that people are receptive too. (Supplied)
In The Odyssey, Greek hero Odysseus (Damon) spends 10 years trying to get back home to the island of Ithaca after winning the Trojan War. He faces a perilous journey in a bid to reunite with his wife Penelope (Hathaway).
The film, written for the screen by Nolan, is based on ancient Greek mythology attributed to the poet Homer and composed around the 7th or 8th century BC, in an era characterised by oral storytelling.
It’s taken the box office by storm, earning $US263.8 million ($376m) at the worldwide box office, becoming Nolan’s biggest global opening of all time.
In Australia, The Odyssey has debuted at number one, grossing $13.4 million in its opening weekend, which is a 2026 record.
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Nolan’s last film Oppenheimer was famously one half of the Barbenheimer phenomenon in 2023, during which moviegoers were encouraged to see both Barbie and Oppenheimer as a double feature.
Oppenheimer won seven Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director.
Nolan is also the director behind a series of blockbuster films including The Dark Knight (2008) starring Heath Ledger, Inception (2010), Interstellar (2014), and the sleeper hit Memento (2000) starring Guy Pearce.
Hepburn says The Odyssey is a fantastic showcase of Nolan’s “filmic tenacity”.
“He has joined the ranks of Stanley Kubrick, David Lean, Denis Villeneuve, Steven Spielberg, David Lynch,” Hepburn says.
“All these filmmakers who have pushed the boundaries of audience perceptions of what a cinema experience can be, and that is why I think he is on top of the world.”
With The Odyssey, Nolan even takes the Tinseltown crown, according to Hepburn.
“I think he is the new king of Hollywood, and I think you’ve only got to really look at the box office because Hollywood runs off success and you’re only as good as your last job,” Hepburn says.
“To come off the back of an Oscar winning film, then to have a box office phenomenon like The Odyssey, he’s two for two, so let’s see where he goes next.
“It’s going to be a big third act.”
A fan favourite
The Odyssey has received widespread critical acclaim with 95% positive reviews from critics on Rotten Tomatoes and a 97% popcornmeter rating from moviegoers.
The movie is also getting people back in cinemas, according to Jeremy Fee, general manager of IMAX Melbourne.
“From an IMAX perspective, Christopher Nolan has been the king of cinema for us for a long time,” says Mr Fee.
Jeremy Fee says Nolan has been IMAX Melbourne’s king of cinema for some time. (Supplied: Eugene Hyland)
“We want people just to come back out to cinemas and support their local cinema as much as possible.
“The king of cinema is bringing people back.”
The Odyssey has overtaken Oppenheimer at IMAX Melbourne to be the biggest grossing film of all time at the cinema, which is home to the largest 1.43:1 screen on the planet, the exact ratio the film was shot in.
It’s also the only cinema in the Southern Hemisphere screening the movie on IMAX 70mm Film.
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“That large film stock means that you can capture every single detail when you’re filming and when you project in 70 mil, you’re basically projecting an exact replica of what Nolan filmed,” Mr Fee says.
“So, you’re seeing every piece of information that he wants you to see and that he has filmed.
“It’s the most accurate representation of that filming process in cinema.”
Do criticisms stack up?
Prior to the film’s release, controversy erupted over casting and historical accuracy, mostly from people who were yet to see the film.
Tom Hercules Davies, lecturer in classics and archaeology at the University of Melbourne, has watched The Odyssey, and says Nolan’s adaptation seems to tap into current world events.
“I thought it was an interesting interpretation of the Odyssey for life in the early 21st century,” Dr Davies says.
“[It] really focused on what it feels like to live in an age of collapse, when things feel like they’re ending.”
Dr Tom Hercules Davies says Nolan’s interpretation of The Odyssey focuses on what it’s like to live in an age of collapse. (Supplied: Selden Koolman)
Dr Davies says The Odyssey zeroes in on the law of Zeus or the social norm of Xenia and the hospitality offered to guests arriving on one’s shores.
“I think this has real relevance for the present when we hear a lot about a so-called migrant crisis, where the mobility of different people or the movement of people is presented as some sort of crisis.
“And also, a world in which the imperial states that dominate our planets are moving into a sort of more open belligerence than we saw in the latter half of the 20th century.
“And I think that’s a really sort of tempting analogy to draw between the world of the Bronze Age and our own period, so I thought that was interesting.”
Nolan on set with Cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema. (Supplied: Universal Pictures)
As for the framing of arguments around historical accuracy?
“[It] is completely the wrong way to look at a text like the Odyssey, which is to its own time and its own audience, is a sort of half remembered fantasy story about an age of heroes, which is very different from the age of the audience and the poets,” Dr Davies says.
“We have all sorts of details in these poems that are collapsing different historical eras.
“And it’s mistaken to think that the world’s depicted in the Odyssey was not an international world.
“In the first few lines of the Odyssey, we learn that Odysseus is able to begin his journey home properly because Poseidon is out of the way.
“He’s gone to visit Ethiopia in Africa.
“So, this is a world that is already globally connected.
“It would be a mistake to think that there was any sort of accuracy in casting just white actors or just European actors in the roles of the poem.“
Dr Davies also points out that it’s unclear if Homer was a single author.
“For the first hundred years in which the Iliad and Odyssey were circulating in Greece, nobody attributed them to Homer, or Homēros in Greek,” Dr Davies says.
“Other early Greek poets allude to these poems, but they don’t name any author.
“The name itself is weird.
“We know of nobody else called Homēros until about 500 years later, and the word itself means ‘hostage’, which is a funny thing to call anyone.
“So how did the Odyssey come to be attributed to someone called Homer?”
Goddess Athena assists Odysseus on his epic journey. (Supplied: Universal Pictures)
He says early on, the Iliad and Odyssey were performed by a group of poetic performers who called themselves the Homeridae.
“One way of interpreting that title is as the children of someone called Homer,” he says.
“But that’s only one way.
“And it may be that this professional society of performing poets kind of projected this figure, Homer, onto the poems that they made their living singing, as a way of giving … their professional society some sort of coherence.”
He says some scholars believe Homer was an invented figure.
“Whether or not the Odyssey has a single author, there’s no good reason to think he [or she] was named Homer,” he says.
As for whether Nolan is the king of cinema in his eyes?
“No, I’d give that title to James Cameron,” Dr Davies says.
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The Odyssey is in cinemas now.
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