Christopher Nolan almost came close to directing an ancient epic before The Odyssey, but got Batman Begins instead

Christopher Nolan might be daring to tackle one of the first great adventure stories in human history with The Odyssey, but this isn’t the first time he’s come close to handling a sword-and-sandal epic. Speaking to Empire. about his upcoming project that seemingly has half of Hollywood in it, Nolan recalled the time he almost helmed the Brad Pitt-starring epic, Troy.

It turns out he was the first pick for the job before he was taken off the production in place of Wolfgang Petersen, who had been developing it prior to Nolan's involvement. At the time, Petersen was unable to get himself into the director’s chair as he was too busy working on his version of a Batman vs. Superman film. When that fell through, he took the reins of the Trojan horse, instead.

“I was originally hired by Warner Bros. to direct Troy,” he recalled. “Wolfgang had developed it, and so when the studio decided not to proceed with his superhero movie, he wanted [Troy] back.”

His consolation prize of a project wasn’t that bad, though. With Petersen taking over Troy, Warner Bros took away a giant wooden horse for Nolan to play with and instead gave him a bunch of wonderful toys and a Batcave to hang around in with Batman Begins. It, of course, led to Nolan's career exploding and giving the world one of the greatest live-action versions of the Dark Knight to date. Flash forward to 2025, and Nolan is finally heading back to ancient Greece.

“At the end of the day, it was a world that I was very interested to explore. So it’s been at the back of my mind for a very long time,” Nolan revealed. “Certain images, particularly. How I wanted to handle the Trojan horse, things like that.”

We’ll be able to see just how epic Nolan’s take on The Odyssey will be when the film arrives in theaters on July 17, 2026. To learn everything about the movie, head here.