Christopher Nolan has a message for anyone already wondering what comes after ‘The Odyssey‘: don’t hold your breath.
Speaking on ‘Today‘ this week, the Oscar-winning director said that after the exhausting production of his Homer adaptation, he’s planning to step back from filmmaking for a while. He told the show it will be “at least” three years before his next movie.
Christopher Nolan on the Making of ‘The Odyssey’
It’s a big shift for a filmmaker who has stuck to a pretty steady schedule for years. ‘Interstellar‘ came out in 2014, ‘Dunkirk‘ in 2017, ‘Tenet‘ in 2020, ‘Oppenheimer‘ in 2023, and now ‘The Odyssey.’ Nolan has usually put out a film every two or three years for over a decade. But by his own account, this shoot pushed him further than any of his past projects.
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“I definitely hit the limits of my own stamina and everybody’s stamina, I think,” Nolan said, describing the shoot as both physically and creatively draining. He seemed to see the difficulty as unavoidable given what he was trying to pull off. “I mean, it’s The Odyssey, of course it should be difficult.“
For Nolan, that strain wasn’t a sign that something went wrong. It was proof he was actually honoring the material. As he put it, taking on a 2,700-year-old epic without pushing everyone close to their limit would have meant letting the story down. “We’re not doing the job right making a film of The Odyssey if it doesn’t seem difficult,” he said.
‘The Odyssey’ Becomes First Film Shot Entirely on IMAX Cameras
Nolan’s ambition shows in how the film was made. ‘The Odyssey‘ became the first feature-length movie ever shot entirely on IMAX cameras, and the story behind that milestone traces back to Nolan pushing IMAX to build lighter, quieter cameras that could handle a production this big. IMAX CEO Rich Gelfond said Nolan called him up and said, “If you can figure out how to solve the problems, will make [Odyssey] 100 percent in IMAX,” and that request forced the company to rethink its cameras and film recorders from the ground up.
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The movie also has a stacked cast. Matt Damon plays Odysseus, joined by Tom Holland, Zendaya, Anne Hathaway, Robert Pattinson, Lupita Nyong’o and Charlize Theron. It was shot on location around the world, and Nolan leaned on practical effects instead of CGI to bring Homer’s monsters, gods, and storms to the screen.
‘The Odyssey’ Box Office and Reviews Set New Career Highs for Nolan
All that effort seems to be paying off. The film opened to around $117 million domestically, the best live-action debut of 2026 and the biggest opening of Matt Damon’s career as a lead actor. It also pulled a 96% audience score and a matching 96% on the Tomatometer, the best reviews of Nolan’s career. People in the industry are already talking about it as a real Best Picture contender.
For now, fans will just have to be patient. Based on what Nolan said, his next project might not show up until close to the end of the decade, which leaves plenty of time to rewatch ‘The Odyssey‘ and the rest of his movies in the meantime.
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