Nolan calls ‘Odyssey’ backlash irrelevant, leans on Batman experience

Director Christopher Nolan says he isn’t losing sleep over months of online criticism aimed at his big-budget adaptation of Homer’s “The Odyssey,” arguing that pre-release commentary about the film’s casting and design choices carries little weight before anyone has actually seen it.

In an interview with The Telegraph, Mr. Nolan said the backlash “comes with the territory” of adapting a classical text, arguing that criticism voiced before release rarely holds up: “these conversations that happen before people see the film — they’re always irrelevant.” He pointed to his decade directing the “Dark Knight” trilogy as proof that outcry over a beloved property tends to fade once audiences see the finished film for themselves.

“The Odyssey,” a $250 million epic starring Matt Damon as Odysseus alongside Anne Hathaway, Tom Holland, Zendaya, Robert Pattinson, Charlize Theron and Lupita Nyong’o, opens in theaters July 17. Much of the criticism has centered on Ms. Nyong’o’s casting as Helen of Troy, along with transgender actor Elliot Page’s role as the Greek soldier Sinon, who persuades the Trojans to bring the wooden horse inside their city walls. The character does not appear in Homer’s poem at all; he comes from Virgil’s “Aeneid” and other post-Homeric traditions.

Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk has been among the most vocal critics, writing on X in late January that “Chris Nolan has lost his integrity” over Ms. Nyong’o’s casting, a post that predated confirmation of her role. Mr. Musk later amplified posts accusing the director of favoring diversity over faithfulness to the source material, and in May wrote that Mr. Nolan had “desecrated” the poem to chase Academy Award eligibility.

Daily Wire commentator Matt Walsh also criticized the casting on X, writing that “Nolan is technically talented but a coward” for choosing Ms. Nyong’o over a white actress, a post Mr. Musk endorsed. Ms. Nyong’o, who was born in Mexico and grew up in Kenya, has previously brushed off the criticism, telling reporters the story is mythological rather than historical.

Mr. Nolan has also defended the film’s armor design after some online commentators said the look of the character Agamemnon, played by Benny Safdie, resembled Batman’s suit. Speaking with Time magazine, he pointed to real Bronze Age artifacts as inspiration: “There are Mycenaean daggers that are blackened bronze,” he said, explaining the material choice was meant to signal Agamemnon’s wealth relative to other characters.

Universal Pictures has taken note of the pre-release furor even as the studio touts strong advance interest in the film; many IMAX screenings reportedly sold out months before release. The studio restricted comments on the film’s official X account after a wave of hostile posts, though Mr. Nolan indicated the reaction wouldn’t change his approach to adapting classic material.

Mr. Nolan drew a similar parallel to his Batman years in closing, telling The Telegraph that fans of a beloved property tend to embrace an adaptation once they sense the sincerity behind it, even when the choices made differ from what audiences expected going in.