Christopher Nolan is known for going all-in to make his movies feel authentic, heading to locations other directors wouldn't dream of. The Odyssey, his upcoming epic based on Homer's legendary work, is no exception, seeing the cast head to Morocco, Greece, Italy, Iceland, and Scotland.
It was such a sprawling adaptation that Matt Damon, who plays the film's lead Odysseus, admits he had an unusual reaction every time they would get to a new location.
"Every location we would get there and I would just start laughing like, 'Who thought you should shoot a movie here?'" he said in a new featurette. "You know, we're shooting in Nestor's Cave in Greece. It's this incredible place but nobody's ever tried to shoot a film up there. So to see the rigging that they did to basically turn it into a natural sound stage, I don't know any other director who would try it."
Filming on the fantasy movie took place over 91 days, making it an intense process for those involved, especially Damon who was in almost every shot. "This is definitely the biggest movie that I've ever done in my career," he added. "It feels like we've made six or seven movies and in a sense we did. Every single chapter of adventure was at a different location that posed a different challenge."
Nolan may be an ambitious filmmaker but he is also incredibly efficient, wrapping the shoot nine days earlier than expected. It's a style of movie-making that Telemachus star Tom Holland found incredibly inspiring – and led him to keep phoning his Spider-Man collaborators from set.
It's also a kind of filmmaking that Damon has said he wonders if it will keep going. "I knew that this was the last chance I was going to have to do something like this," he said recently. "I don’t think people are going to be given the resources to shoot movies that way for much longer."
The Odyssey arrives in theaters on July 17, 2026. Check out our ranking of the best Christopher Nolan movies and keep up with all of the new movies heading your way.
