There are films that open in theaters and there are films that open in theaters after their director canceled all influencer advance screenings, Elon Musk called the casting “how pathetic” in a two-word comment with no capitalization, the YouTube trailer accumulated a 94 percent dislike ratio that YouTube had to investigate, and a four-US-senator statement was released criticizing the production, and Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey”, which opens today, is the second kind.
Nolan’s adaptation of Homer’s epic poem stars Matt Damon as Odysseus, Lupita Nyong’o as Penelope, Zendaya as Athena, Anne Hathaway as Penelope’s suitor-adjacent character, and Charlize Theron as Calypso, in a cast that Nolan assembled with the complete indifference to online casting discourse that has characterized his career and which has produced more online casting discourse than any film this year. Nyong’o is Kenyan-Mexican. Penelope is from ancient Ithaca in Greece. The casting of a Kenyan-Mexican actress as a character from ancient Greece produced the response that casting a Black actress in a Greek role produces in 2026, which is a response Nolan appears to have anticipated, since he canceled all influencer advance screenings and allowed only approved critics to see the film before today.
The trailer’s 94 percent downvote ratio on YouTube produced a YouTube investigation into whether the dislikes were organic or coordinated, per Fox News’s earlier reporting, which is the investigation YouTube conducts when a high-profile trailer accumulates dislikes at a rate that suggests either genuine audience displeasure or a coordinated campaign, and which did not resolve the underlying question of which it was before the film opened anyway.
Musk posted “how pathetic” about the casting. He has 200 million followers on his own platform. The comment was the entire post, delivered with the orthographic choices of a man who considers capitalization optional when expressing cultural grievance. Nolan, whose last film “Oppenheimer” earned $952 million globally and won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, has not responded to the comment, possibly because he has $250 million worth of film in theaters today and Elon Musk has a social media platform.
The film opens today. The critics who saw it have reviewed it. The people who downvoted the trailer are buying tickets or they are not.
When a $250 million Nolan film opens after a Musk comment, canceled influencer screenings, a 94% disliked trailer, and a four-senator statement, what exactly is the audience going to see?
Sources
Fox News: Christopher Nolan faces growing backlash over Odyssey casting
