‘The Odyssey’ Runtime Confirmed To Be Under 3 Hours

With The Odyssey set to release in a little over 3 months, there is more news about the film slowly rolling in. The Odyssey was presented in the Universal Studios portion at CinemaCon, where Christopher Nolan presented the film.

Nolan started off by addressing why he chose to adapt The Odyssey:

“Why The Odyssey? The Odyssey is a story that has fascinated generation after generation for 3,000 years. It’s not a story. It’s the story.”

The footage shown included Calypso played by Charlize Theron who features in a scene with Matt Damon’s Odysseus who tells her he can’t remember anything before Troy. “Did I have a wife? Children? Maybe a son? If I had a son, how old would he be now?”

The rest of the footage featured the Trojan horse portion that was released as a prologue exclusive to theaters with Avatar: Fire and Ash. Reportedly, what was shown at Cinemacon was a longer version of the prologue with more action during the ambush.

Also revealed at CinemaCon was that The Odyssey was going to be shorter than 3 hours. Producer and Nolan’s wife Emma Thomas revealed that The Odyssey would have a runtime under 3 hours even though she wasn’t quite sure how long the final cut actually was which according to Nolan is near completion.

This is largely unsurprising because the IMAX 70mm film reel can only fit so much. Oppenheimer’s film reel length was reportedly the longest it could fit and that ran 3 hours on the dot. The only other way to make a film longer would be through an intermission, which is seemingly not the direction Nolan decided to go with.

Nolan confirmed at CinemaCon that this would in fact tell the story of Odysseus’ entire journey in one film. It’s unclear if any part of the journey in the 24 books will be left out to make this happen but it does sound like the film will try to tell the full story.

The Odyssey stars an ensemble cast led by Matt Damon and stars Jon Bernthal, Tom Holland, Zendaya, Anne Hathaway, Lupita N’yongo, Charlize Theron, Robert Pattinson, Mia Goth, John Leguizamo, Elliot Page, Himesh Patel, and Benny Safdie.

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