Christopher Nolan says he has used more than 2 million ft of film for his adaptation of Homer’s Odyssey, which is in post-production, after the director finished shooting in August.
In an interview with Empire magazine, Nolan said: “I’ve been out on [the sea] for the last four months. We got the cast who play the crew of Odysseus’s ship out there on the real waves, in the real places … We really wanted to capture how hard those journeys would have been for people. And the leap of faith that was being made in an unmapped, uncharted world.” He added: “We shot over 2 million ft of film.”
The Odyssey has been entirely shot on the large-scale Imax format, which uses considerably more film than standard 35mm cameras. According to Indepth Cine, Imax cameras use around 337ft of 65mm film per minute,, compared to 90ft for 35mm. This suggests Nolan has shot around 100 hours of raw footage – which in fact compares relatively favourably to some other recent films; a log by editor Vashi Nedomanski suggests that Mad Max: Fury Road shot around 480 hours of raw footage, and Gone Girl shot 500 hours.
Nolan also outlined in the interview his reasons for picking the project, having been in line to direct another Homeric epic, Troy, more than two decades ago. “As a film-maker, you’re looking for gaps in cinematic culture, things that haven’t been done before. And what I saw is that all of this great mythological cinematic work that I had grown up with – Ray Harryhausen movies and other things – I’d never seen that done with the sort of weight and credibility that an A-budget and a big Hollywood, Imax production could do.”
He added: “By embracing the physicality of the real world in the making of the film, you do inform the telling of the story in interesting ways. Because you’re confronted on a daily basis by the world pushing back at you.”
Speaking to the same magazine, Matt Damon, who plays Odysseus, was effusive in his compliments for Nolan: “I can say, without hyperbole, that it was the best experience of my career … “I saw the [Trojan] horse on the beach and I was just like, ‘Fuck’. It was just so cool.”
Nolan’s film, which also stars Tom Holland as Odysseus’s son Telemachus, is due for release in July 2026.
