The 20-year coincidence that led Christopher Nolan to ‘The Odyssey’: “Maybe fate helped out”
As one of the few directors capable of making whatever they want however they want to make it for however much they want it to cost, Christopher Nolan is in the rare position of writing his own ticket, placing him among an elite crop of filmmakers that also includes Steven Spielberg, James Cameron, and… not many beyond that.
After reaching the pinnacle of the industry with Oppenheimer, the crowning achievement that won him Academy Awards for ‘Best Picture’ and ‘Best Director’, cinephiles waited with bated breath to discover what he would tackle next, and there were plenty of shocked faces when it was revealed as The Odyssey.
Then again, maybe it shouldn’t be that much of a surprise that Nolan’s recent filmography has seen him alternate between the fantastical and the grounded. The existential sci-fi epic Interstellar was followed by the World War II drama Dunkirk, while the time-bending Tenet was followed by the biographical Oppenheimer.
He was due a flight of fancy, even if tackling Homer’s eponymous poem wasn’t an obvious choice. However, it’s technically been over 20 years in the making, with a string of coincidences and perhaps a little twist of fate leading Nolan towards his sprawling and star-studded ancient adventure.
In the early 2000s, when Warner Bros struggled to find a way to reboot Batman, the studio enlisted Das Boot and Air Force One filmmaker Wolfgang Petersen to helm Batman vs Superman, setting a release date of summer 2004 for the comic book crossover.
At the same time, the industry’s heavy hitters circled Nolan after Memento and Insomnia had put him on the map, inundating him with offers to take the reins on expensive crowd-pleasers. One such project was Troy, which was, of course, loosely inspired by Homer’s The Iliad.
Petersen was deemed the best fit for Troy due to his experience overseeing large-scale productions, which placed his Batman vs Superman on the back burner before all roads led directly back to Nolan. Weeks after he was announced to be co-writing and directing Batman Begins, Petersen started work on the first day of Troy‘s shooting schedule.
Petersen directed Troy instead of a Batman movie, and Nolan directed a Batman movie instead of Troy. More than two decades later, he returns to Homer’s stories, making The Odyssey something of a full-circle moment. “Thank god he did Batman,” Petersen told Vanity Fair. “Maybe fate helped out there.”
If Nolan had helmed Troy, he’d have never made the Dark Knight trilogy, which helped propel him to his current position. Similarly, Petersen’s Batman vs Superman would have erased Christian Bale’s ‘Caped Crusader’ from memory and likely negated the need for Ben Affleck or Robert Pattinson to inherit the mantle in subsequent spinoffs, creating a domino effect that finally stops toppling when The Odyssey hits cinemas in the summer of 2026.
