A single photo was released by Universal Pictures, showing Matt Damon as Odysseus, protagonist in Christopher Nolan’s forthcoming adaptation of Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey. And the creators are already feeling the wrath of the modern-day furies.
That would mean the X brigade, users of the social media platform who were quick to call out the film for historical inaccuracies.
Damon stars in Nolan’s latest film– as the Greek hero alongside an all-star cast comprised of Tom Holland, Zendaya, Robert Pattinson, Lupita Nyong’o, Anne Hathaway, and Charlize Theron.
In the photo, Damon is seen wearing a cape, wrist armor, and a traditional Spartan helmet topped with a red plume.
The costume has generated controversy from history buffs, with numerous 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
The post has been viewed by more than 10 million people, shared more than 13,000 times and “liked” by more than 200,000 people.
The same X user 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.”
Another user shared imagery to show what Odysseus would have actually worn on his head, given the historical time period and what historians know of the time:
“The Odyssey is set during the age of heroes (aka the Mycenaean period) some time around 1200 BC and so the helmets would have been of the boar tusk style, not the corinthian style. The corinthian helmet didn’t come into use until the Archaic period, around 700 BC.”
The Odyssey, which will arrive in IMAX theaters July 17, 2026, will be Oscar winner Nolan’s first film since his 2024 Oscar winner, Oppenheimer.
It will partially be filmed in Sicily, where scholars say Homer based a portion of Odysseus’ journey in his eighth-century BC epic. Filming is scheduled to begin in the next few months on the island of Favignana, known as “goat island,” according to Variety.
Favignana is understood to be the place where Homer wrote that Odysseus and his crew landed, collected food, and barbecued goats in the tale. It is part of the Egadi archipelago off of Sicily’s northwest coast.
Other filming locations will include the U.K., Morocco, and several locations in southern Greece, including a Nestor’s Cave in Messinia, where Odysseus will encounter the one-eyed giant Polyphemus the Cyclops.
