6 Years Later, Christopher Nolan's Next Epic Is Repeating His Favorite Trick

"The Odyssey has always been a story passed down by oral tradition. Homer may be the author, but it was told by performers to audiences over and over. Now, millennia later, that story is being told by Christopher Nolan to its biggest audience yet. Nolan's Odyssey will be a large-scale epic that's already sold out some theaters months before its release, but if you're not patient enough to wait until July 2026, you can catch a sneak peek in certain movie screenings soon."

"A pre-release prologue is a go-to strategy for Christopher Nolan. The first five minutes of The Dark Knight were shown before I Am Legend, the first six minutes of The Dark Knight Rises were shown before screenings of Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, Dunkirk had a sneak peek ahead of Rogue One, and Tenet's first scene premiered before early screenings of The Rise of Skywalker."

"But just what will this sneak peek involve? It's likely just the first few minutes of the actual movie, but unlike all of Nolan's previous work, The Odyssey has an existing prologue: The Iliad, Homer's epic depicting the decade-long siege of Troy that took Odysseus away from Ithaka in the first place. The Odyssey is the story of his equally long journey home, so it's possible this clip will establish how he thought up the Trojan Horse and caused Troy to fall to the Greeks."

The Odyssey originates in oral tradition and is being adapted by Christopher Nolan as a large-scale epic already selling out some theaters months before its July 2026 release. A nearly six-minute prologue will premiere ahead of 70mm IMAX screenings of One Battle After Another and Sinners on December 12, with all IMAX showings of Avatar: Fire and Ash including the prologue starting December 19. Nolan frequently releases theatrical prologues for early exposure. The prologue likely contains the film's opening minutes and could depict events from the Iliad, such as the Trojan Horse origin. These clips are usually exclusive to theaters and may not be released online.

Read at Inverse