Matt Damon is Odysseus in THE ODYSSEY, written, produced, and directed by Christopher Nolan.
Melinda Sue Gordon
The Odyssey is setting critical and box office records in various categories nearly every day, but there remains a loud subsection of social media users, mostly found on X, who remain dead-set against the film. One of those users is the site’s owner, Elon Musk, who has previously said that “Chris Nolan has lost his integrity” in response to comments about Nolan casting the actress, Lupita Nyong’o, who is Black, as Helen of Troy, among other sharp posts about the film.
Now, Musk is making new claims about the film, showing off a Grok-created Odyssey clip, and then saying, “Before this year ends, Grok Imagine will make a full-length movie of The Odyssey that is historically accurate and true to the art of Homer.” This has already been done with a different AI-created Odyssey film that has been getting a lot of (negative) attention.
Musk also seems open to the idea of giving money to a human director, responding to a post that says he wants Musk to give director Mel Gibson $100 million to make a “historically accurate” Odyssey. To which Musk answered, “I’m down.” Many users noted that Gibson is not exactly a beacon of historical accuracy with his films like Braveheart, Apocalypto, The Patriot, The Passion of the Christ and more.
Will any of this happen? A Grok AI movie? A Gibson feature? Musk says many things, and occasionally he delivers. I’m thinking of the financial support he gave actress Gina Carano, who was fired from The Mandalorian for social media posts, when he said he would do so for those fired for “freedom of speech” on his site.
You can watch the AI-made Odyssey movie (well, a few clips is probably enough) to see how that is likely to pan out and the quality the current tech can produce (you can probably guess). As for Gibson, he is likely tied up with his two-part Resurrection of the Christ movies, the Passion sequel pair that may arrive in 2027 and 2028. His last film was Flight Risk in 2025, which has a 28% Rotten Tomatoes score.
The Odyssey continues to steamroll its competitors, though it likely only has another week or so of box-office dominance until Spider-Man: Brand New Day arrives. That film could end up being the highest-grossing movie of the year based on ticket pre-sales and the tidal wave of interest in Spider-Man stories, dispelling the idea of superhero fatigue when it’s the right superhero. But this is probably the only Odysseus we’re going to get.
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