John Leguizamo, who is starring in Christopher Nolan’s forthcoming film adaptation of The Odyssey, has shared that while the director has a “crazy budget”, he runs the production like an “indie filmmaker”.
An adaptation of Homer’s epic Greek poem, The Odyssey will star Matt Damon playing the leading role of Odysseus. While it is still not known who is playing the other characters, the all-star cast includes Tom Holland, Zendaya, Robert Pattinson, Lupita Nyong’o, Anne Hathaway, and Charlize Theron.
In the original poem, Odysseus, king of the Greek island of Ithaca, embarks on a long journey home after the end of the Trojan War. However, his “odyssey” proves perilous as he meets numerous threats and mythological creatures on his way.
In a recent interview, Leguizamo talked about filming The Odyssey with the Oppenheimer director, saying he brings a very “indie” feel to the massive production.
“Dude, you know the thing is, okay he’s got a crazy budget, it’s not small, but he runs [it] like an indie film because he’s not doing it by committee, he’s not doing it by what the studio says,” Leguizamo said on MSNBC’s Morning Joe.
“He’s like an indie filmmaker but with crazy money.”
According to Universal Pictures, the film is “a mythic action epic shot across the world using brand new Imax film technology. The film brings Homer’s foundational saga to Imax film screens for the first time”.
According to multiple reports by US publications, The Odyssey is set to be the most expensive film of Nolan’s career, with a $250m budget. His previous feature Oppenheimer, which won seven awards at the Oscars, was made on a $100m budget and his most expensive film to date has been The Dark Knight Rises, made on a $250m budget.
The Odyssey will partially be filmed on the island of Favignana in Sicily, where scholars say Homer based a portion of Ulysses’ journey in his 8th century BCE epic.
Favignana is understood to be the place where Homer wrote that Ulysses and his crew landed, collected food, and barbecued goats in the tale. It is part of the Egadi archipelago off of Sicily’s north west coast.
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Other filming locations will include the UK and Morocco.
Earlier in February, The Odyssey was hit with criticism for allegedly rewriting history, after the studio released a first look picture of Damon as Odysseus.
In the picture, Damon is seen wearing a cape, wrist armour, and a traditional Spartan helmet topped with a red plume, which has generated controversy, with several people on X pointing out that it differs from what is described in the original text.
“The Iliad literally describes Odysseus wearing a kino leather helmet adorned with boar tusks, but Hollywood can never resist the siren song of the generic ancient broom helmet. This helmet is like cocaine to costume designers,” wrote a user named @witte_sergei.
They additionally shared a screenshot of the “relevant passage from book 10” which reads: “And Meroiones gave to Odysseus a bow and a quiver and a sword, and about his head he set a helm wrought of hide, and with many tight-stretched thong was it made stiff within, while without the white teeth of a boar of gleaming tusks were set on this side and that.”
The Odyssey will be released in theatres on 17 July 2026.
