The primary function movie shot totally on IMAX cameras, a fancy dress epic with big-name stars like Matt Damon and Tom Holland, a fancy work of classical literature: The Odyssey is clearly the kind of film that solely somebody like Christopher Nolan might make in 2026. Not solely does Nolan have the ability and expertise working with a number of time-frames to carry Homer’s epic to trendy audiences, however he has the title and cache to get studios to again him, particularly after his 2023 triumph Oppenheimer.
However Christopher Nolan wasn’t all the time THE Christopher Nolan, which meant that he couldn’t all the time do epics the way in which that he wished. That was actually the case again within the early 2000s, when Nolan nearly helmed a really completely different film primarily based on Greek classics. Earlier than helming Batman Begins, Nolan was planning to make Troy, the 2004 movie starring Brad Pitt as hero Achilles.
Whereas the thought of Nolan making a Greek epic fully tracks in the present day, that actually wasn’t the case again within the early 2000s. After a strong calling-card film Following, Nolan piloted two well-received thriller movies, Memento and Insomnia. Even when that they had their stylistic thrives, notably the backwards plotting of the previous, each of these motion pictures had been grounded within the current actuality, and had much more in widespread with Raymond Chandler than Homer.
As an alternative, Troy went to a director extra related to large motion, the German filmmaker Wolfgang Petersen, who beforehand helmed The NeverEnding Story and The Good Storm. Beneath Peretersen’s watch, Troy grew to become pure Hollywood spectacle. An adaptation of The Illiad, Troy confirmed how an alliance between King Agamemnon (Brian Cox) of the Greeks and King Menelaus (Brendan Gleeson) of the Spartans results in an assault on Troy, lead by Priam (Peter O’Toole). The battle builds to a face of between Achilles and Trojan warrior Hector (Eric Bana).
