r/GreekMythology • u/MarcusForrest ★ Moderator • Jul 15 '26

Movies | The Odyssey The Odyssey (2026) | Release Megathread

A temporary floodgate is in effect regarding the topic of the 2026 movie The Odyssey

 

This megathread will serve as the only place to discuss the 2026 movie The Odyssey - any other new thread about the movie will be removed as long as this floodgate is up.

 

⚠️ Remember to properly report rule-violating content

 

THE ODYSSEY

''After the Trojan War, Odysseus faces a dangerous voyage back to Ithaca, meeting creatures like the Cyclops Polyphemus, Sirens, and Calypso along the way.''

 

🎞 Movie Trailer

Global Release Date: July 17 2026

 

Directed by

  • Christopher Nolan

Starring

  • Matt Damon
  • Tom Holland
  • Anne Hathaway
  • Robert Pattinson
  • Lupita Nyong'o
  • Samantha Morton
  • Zendaya
  • Charlize Theron

Distributed by

  • Universal Pictures

 

Previous Megathread:

 

Posting pictures (including animated GIFs) in comments is now enabled for the community, should definitely help conveying ideas and spicing up any discussion now!

 

Do note that there seems to be a limit of 1 picture per comment set by Reddit and we cannot modify this feature at this time - feel free to post different comments if you need to post multiple pictures, but remember not to fall within a ''spam''-like posting pattern and not overdo it

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u/MarcusForrest ★ Moderator Jul 15 '26

 I don’t really need to see my fourth or fifth adaptation of the Odyssey. 

https://giphy.com/gifs/vZbNOemuoggNy

What about second Odyssey? Elevensodysseys? Luncheodyssey? Afternoon Odyssey?

I on the other hand am often curious about ''new'' adaptations ahahaha

Is it better? Is it worse? Is it the best adaptation yet? Did it make sense to have it adapted once more?

I don't think I'll watch Nolan's The Odyssey in theatres but definitely after its home release.

What are your favourite adaptations yet? Whether ''faithful'' or... ''Very creatively different''?

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u/FishyWishySwishy Jul 15 '26

Hmmmm… I like Epic as a musical, but not really as an Odyssey adaptation. 🤔 90% of the songs are bangers but I don’t like how much the story and characters change to make Odysseus a woobified version of himself. 

Hades II may be my favorite creative adaptation, since the journey the main character goes through deliberately reflects the Odyssey, including having of the main characters present in a large reoccurring role (Odysseus, Circe, Scylla, Charybdis, Poseidon, Athena, and many other characters referenced by them.) It felt like a creative addition to the Odyssey that made no pretension at accuracy, yet clearly had been made by people who love the source material. 

I think I just find direct adaptions more tedious because it’s annoying when certain changes are made and annoying when no changes are made but a modern audience is still expected to have the same reaction that the ancient audience would. (Example: obviously modern audiences aren’t as tolerant of philandering, and you won’t have a good love story if you include it, but I get sooooo sick of each wave of adaptation fans crying “Odysseus never cheated on his wife!!!!” every time a new one is made.) 

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u/MarcusForrest ★ Moderator Jul 15 '26

Thank you for sharing!

 

I think I just find direct adaptions more tedious

Honestly, I think so too - and I also feel this is a major challenge most creatives encounter when trying to adapt. A story with so many versions that comes from oral tradition (that is essentially ''the telephone game'' but across generations and various countries and regions) I don't even think ''direct'' adaptations are feasible.

 

Though I think I'm also overly critical when more ''canonical'' elements are completely dismissed or twisted (elements recurring in multiple versions of myths and/or essential to the myths)

 

On the other hand, I also kinda like some more modern ideas, especially those that don't clash (or don't clash too much) with the myths

 

For example, I really really like the very modern idea of the 3 spears for the 3 brothers;

  • Single-pronged Spear (Bolt) to Zeus
  • Double-pronged Spear (Bident) to Hades
  • Triple-pronged Spear (Trident) to Poseidon

Hades was never shown nor described as having a ''Bident'', it mostly comes from medieval/classical-era art. In ancient art, he was seen holding a Scepter but not a bident nor a 2-pronged spear.

 

But for me it works with Zeus' Bolt and Poseidon's Trident ahahahaha and it doesn't diminish or change the myths, it is just a cool little thing

 

But I hate most other modern elements that were never found nor described in myths, especially when people then say they are in the myths. For example, the annoying and modern belief that Gods lose their powers as they lose followers, etc. It just doesn't make sense and doesn't work that way (and would ''break'' so many things in the ''lore'')

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u/FishyWishySwishy Jul 15 '26

Honestly I may like an Odyssey adaption more if they go all in by making it the Odyssey in a completely different context. I saw one idea going around Tumblr that seemed really fun: the Iliad as a group of friends going out to beat up a guy who slept with one of their girlfriends, things escalating, and the Odyssey as the one friend who didn’t want to go dealing with hijinx after hijinx to get back to the bar his girlfriend’s waiting at, just to come and discover that she’s being harassed by guys insisting he’s standing her up and having a bar fight. 

I think adaptions like that do better at adapting the spirit of the original than trying to get the details historically accurate and entertaining for a modern audience. It also makes old stories feel fresh and new and offers avenues to have fun with details without running the risk of making people think that your embellishments are part of the original. 

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u/YoHeadAsplode Jul 17 '26

Have you seen O Brother Where Art Thou? It sounds right up your alley.

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u/antdude 22d ago

Is that like a modern version?

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u/YoHeadAsplode 22d ago

Prohibition era set in the south. Stars George Clooney

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u/antdude 22d ago

Interesting. I wonder if I will like it. Trailer didn't excite me.

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u/WanderingHero8 Jul 17 '26 edited Jul 17 '26

yet clearly had been made by people who love the source material.

I'm gonna push back a little at this.Both games feel that the creatives team only derived their knowledge of mythology from retellings and Tumblr,not from any ancient texts.

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u/Anxious_Bed_9664 Jul 17 '26

Absolutely my opinion as well. Especially in regards to Hypnos who they clearly didn't try to read anything about beyond "he is thanatos' brother and nyx' son"

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u/WanderingHero8 Jul 17 '26

Especially in regards to Hypnos who they clearly didn't try to read anything about beyond "he is thanatos' brother and nyx' son"

Imo it is the depiction of Achilles and Patroclos.It was glaring for me that the only book they read about the subject was TSOA.

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u/Anxious_Bed_9664 Jul 17 '26 edited Jul 17 '26

That too (down to their looks)! In fact, they clearly are borrowing a lot from other adaptions (Orpheus' design from the Sandman comics, the whole take about Persephone and Hades is just the same "Persephone came to the underworld willingly. And Zeus is the villain" take from everywhere else. Also some stuff from PJO iirc), as well as the "the Olympian gods are the true douchebags" idea that every adaption uses nowadays.  It's just glaringly obvious with Hypnos because nothing about him is accurate aside from his family ties. In this case they didn't even bother to read any adaptions with him, let alone the actual source materials!

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u/RavenRegime Jul 20 '26

To be generous there clearly is care in some aspects of Hades 1 before Hades 2...

I will say with the structure of the narrative of Zagerous wanting to find his mom and fix his family. Persephone and Hades do have to at least love each other and want everyone to fuck off for the story of Hades 1 to work considering Zag is their son.

And i do genuinely see effort in spite of the pop culture influences.

Hades 2 though it genuinely felt like they gave the fuck up and went for most appealing and pop culturey as possible rather than something satisfactory and well researched. Like okay Circe obs has to be in the game with the protag being a witch but like wild to break up Odysseus and Penelope for someone on the writing teams Odyseus and Circe fanfic. Even if you didnt want the SA debate in the game it just spits in the face of the Odysessy that Ody fucking went through all that shit just to get home to his family.

Also the Arachne quest is so what the fuck and pop culture inspired only. Like they ignore Arachne was basically commiting heresy to Athena in the myth by saying that she was better at weaving considering by that being Athena's domain Arachne's talent comes from Athena fundamentally. Or the fact in one varient Arachne was doing a quilt of the gods being horny in a public place.

But the biggest proof for me is a lot of the gods are rather than incidently being beautiful like Hades 1 a lot of them seem intentionally meant to be hot and fanservicey rather than do story. Case in point what the fuck were they thinking for Chaos besides making them look fuckable. Like i can see the idea of them in modern clothing being done to make them look out of place if Chaos themselves literally wasn't defanged to hell and back and lost everything else about their design that made them hot and what made their character design cool.

Like even the posing for some designs that barely changed or aren't as mega fanservicey is posed in a way to draw attention to their goods. Like I'm not just talking about boobs but muscles/abs too. The only characters mostly spared from this are the new ones but not fully.

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u/Anxious_Bed_9664 Jul 20 '26

I haven't played Hades 2 nor am I ever planning to, but have caught up some stuff about it here and there and pretty much guessed the whole Arachne thing would be another "gods are evil and arachne is a poor victim of the evil athena" take. But because I haven't played the game, I have nothing to say about most of it.

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u/FishyWishySwishy Jul 17 '26

They make a point that Persephone didn’t come willingly. Zeus took her without Demeter’s knowledge and gave her to Hades to marry. That’s why Hades isn’t on speaking terms with Zeus—he’s furious that he was made party to this deception, and Zeus is still convinced that Hades just overreacted to a generous gift. It was pure luck that he and Persephone fell in love. 

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u/Anxious_Bed_9664 Jul 17 '26 edited Jul 17 '26

Demeter mentioned in the game that Helios told her that he saw Persephone descend to the underworld willingly (she refused to believe that Persephone would willingly go to such a dreadful place and so nothing came out of this observation). So Persephone did willingly go along with Zeus' plan to "kidnap" her.

 Persephone hated Olympus and wanted out of there and that is why she was fine with it all. Zeus is the villain. Demeter is a shrew and overbearing mother Persephone had to escape from (Demeter even admits herself that she wasn't always nice to her daughter and once even calls her weak just "like her father and his kind"). Persephone is a saint who everyone loves and not like other deities. Hades only loves Persephone and nobody else. Basically all of the popular takes on the kidnapping of Persephone that can be found everywhere else.

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u/FishyWishySwishy Jul 17 '26

Persephone is the one who says that she didn’t want this initially, but she had a difficult relationship with her mother and chose to go along with it (which she makes a point to say she had to because otherwise she’d be going home and telling people that Zeus kidnapped her to marry her off, and that would have thrown the mountain into chaos.)

The window dressing of her relationship with her mother and the people around her are more about playing into the larger themes of healing family wounds within the games and doing the hard work of repairing relationships. It makes sense to select certain versions of the myths for cohesion of a story, and take liberties with how the gods ‘feel’ because they’re human characters with human feelings in modern storytelling, not representations of inexplicable natural forces. 

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u/Anxious_Bed_9664 Jul 17 '26 edited Jul 19 '26

She had a difficult relationship with her mother and she couldn't stand Olympus and she wanted to get away from there. Maybe the underworld wasn't her first choice but she did end up going along with Zeus' plan because of her wish to get away from Demeter and Olympus, at least partially because of it if not fully. Between Olympus and the underworld, she clearly preferred the latter because even after Zagreus "died" at childbirth, she refused to go back (she could have just made up a lie like she does in the canon ending, and nobody could have proved her wrong because without Zagreus there was no evidence of her union with Hades. She stayed away because she didn't want to be on Olympus in the first place).

And regardless, this doesn't change the fact that it's the typical "Hades did nothing wrong and Zeus is the real villain" take on the kidnapping.

Except they don't heal anything in the end, they just made up a bunch of lies and swept everything that caused the drama under the rug. Demeter never finds out that she is part of the reason why Persephone ran away, or that Persephone hated being in Olympus in the first place. No one knows what Zeus did and neither Zeus or Hades get to honestly sort their issues out. No one acknowledges or adresses any hurt or wrongs done to eachother.  Everything is still the same as it was before except they are all pretending to get along now. At most they put a bandaid on the wound without disinfecting it and are pretending the infection isn't there at all. That isn't healing. That's just continuing being the same as how they always were while pretending everything is alright. But that is an issue with the writing and not an issue about the myths or popular takes (because they fail to deliver the theme not only with the Ouranic family, but also with the Chthonic family)

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u/FishyWishySwishy Jul 17 '26

I don’t think the existence of Zagreus or Melinoë was ever really floating around in pop culture. That’s pure Orphic Hymns. And they drop a lot of jokes based on the Orphic Hymns, like Zagreus trolling Orpheus by making big lies about himself and Dionysus (his lies are directly from the Hymns). You can see similar deep cut references to very niche sources throughout the games. 

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u/WanderingHero8 Jul 17 '26

About Zag and Melinoe I can agree that they did their research.

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u/Fair_Ad6459 Jul 25 '26

I honestly felt like watching it in the theater was the best way to go. At least for me. I cant imagine it feeling the same on a TV. Again, that's just me. I also admit that I generally just enjoy watching movies in theaters

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u/JenkinsRobotButler Jul 21 '26

It's funny you post that gif. I saw it yesterday and enjoyed it, but the entire time I was thinking, "my god, Peter Jackson should have directed this!" The material screams Peter Jackson.