Christopher Nolan has heard the online grumbling about his next film, and he would like you to know he is not especially worried about it.
'Irrelevant'
As his adaptation of "The Odyssey" nears release, Nolan dismissed the months of backlash over casting and other choices as beside the point. Such conversations, he said, "are always irrelevant, because no one having them knows what the film actually is yet," GamesRadar+ reported, citing an interview with The Telegraph. To Nolan, arguing about a movie no one has seen is simply part of the modern moviegoing ritual.
The Batman lesson
He has been here before, and he said so. "I spent 10 years of my life dealing with Batman," Nolan noted, GamesRadar+ reported, a reminder that his Dark Knight films also drew skepticism before they became critical and commercial touchstones. The experience, he suggested, taught him to let the finished work answer its critics.
What the fuss is about
"The Odyssey" is Nolan's take on Homer's ancient epic, following the Greek hero Odysseus on his long, perilous voyage home from the Trojan War. The film boasts a starry cast led by Matt Damon as Odysseus and Anne Hathaway as Penelope, with Tom Holland, Zendaya and Charlize Theron among the ensemble, as Fox News reported. Some of the criticism has centered on casting and questions of historical accuracy, and the tech billionaire Elon Musk has been among the louder voices piling on.
Let the movie talk
For all the online heat, early signs point the other way. Reviews from people who have actually seen the film have been encouraging, and its recent London premiere drew a strong response, Fox News reported. Nolan, who has spent two decades navigating the swings of internet fandom, seems content to trust that pattern once more: make the movie, release it, and let audiences, not the pre-release chatter, decide. "The Odyssey" reaches theaters in the coming days.
