Christopher Nolan did not need much time to get CinemaCon buzzing. The director showed off fresh footage from ‘The Odyssey’ during Universal’s presentation in Las Vegas, and the material sounds exactly like the kind of large-scale event film people expected from his follow-up to ‘Oppenheimer’.
Reports from the screening said the footage included Matt Damon’s Odysseus speaking with Charlize Theron’s Calypso, plus a major Trojan Horse sequence that pushed the movie’s scale front and center. The film is set for a July 17, 2026 theatrical release and is being presented as Nolan’s first feature shot entirely with IMAX film cameras.
Nolan also explained why he keeps coming back to Homer’s epic, calling it a story that has fascinated people for roughly 3,000 years and describing it as the story, not just a story. He joked about the cast being so stacked that it would be faster to say who is not in the movie, while also singling out Damon and calling the production “an absolute nightmare to film.”
The New Footage Went Straight for the Big Stuff
The footage reportedly opened with Damon’s Odysseus in a disoriented exchange with Calypso, trying to piece together who he was before Troy and whether he had a wife and son waiting for him. From there, the preview shifted into one of the epic’s most famous set pieces, the Trojan Horse. According to reports from the room, the sequence showed Greek soldiers inside the wooden horse as it moved toward Troy, followed by a nighttime attack once they emerged inside the city.
That is the kind of material that instantly sells the movie. Nolan is not teasing some vague prestige adaptation here. He is selling scale, myth, danger, and one of the most recognizable war tricks in literary history.
Why the Hype Is Already So Big
The cast alone has helped keep the movie in constant conversation. Damon leads as Odysseus, with Anne Hathaway as Penelope and Tom Holland as Telemachus. The ensemble also includes Zendaya, Robert Pattinson, Lupita Nyong’o, Elliot Page, and Jon Bernthal.
Then there is Holland’s reaction, which only added more heat. Earlier this month, he called ‘The Odyssey’ “an absolute masterpiece” and said watching it left him asking, “How did you do that?”
At this point, the headline is simple. Nolan showed CinemaCon a Trojan Horse sequence, a dazed Odysseus, and enough scale to remind everyone why this is one of 2026’s biggest movie bets.
