Inside Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey: The staggering numbers behind cinema’s most ambitious epic

Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of Homer’s The Odyssey was always intended to be an epic, but the scale of the production is perhaps best understood through the numbers behind it: 172 minutes, 91 shooting days, six countries and a reported budget of $250 million.

Here are the numbers for Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey

Clocking in at 172 minutes, The Odyssey is one of Nolan’s longest films, though it remains slightly shorter than his Oscar-winning Oppenheimer, which ran for 180 minutes.

“It’s an epic film, as the subject matter demands,” Nolan told The Associated Press. “But it is shorter.”

Six countries, 91 days and one demanding production

Principal photography took place across Greece, Italy, Morocco, Iceland, Scotland and the United States. Although the production was initially scheduled for 100 shooting days, filming wrapped after 91 days, finishing ahead of schedule.

Nolan said, “I found that after 100 days, it’s very diminishing returns. We finished a little early because a lot of things broke our way in terms of weather or getting the conditions we needed or wanted to make particular shots.”

For Nolan, authenticity was central to the production. He said, “For me, being on a real location, shooting certain things like when the crew is out setting sail on that boat, or going through a storm, I want it to feel almost like a documentary.”

A film shot on an enormous scale

The production captured approximately 2.1 million feet of IMAX film, an amount the filmmakers say exceeds the distance between Toronto and New York.

“By shooting on IMAX 70mm film, you’re really letting the screen disappear,” Nolan explained. “You’re getting a feeling of 3D without the glasses.”

Working with IMAX cameras brought its own challenges. Each roll of film allowed only about 2.5 to 3 minutes of continuous shooting before reloading was necessary.

“That’s an expensive camera. You got two and a half minutes with each roll of film, so you gotta get it in and keep it moving,” said Lupita Nyong’o.

The camera system itself, including its specialised noise-reducing housing, weighed approximately 300 pounds.

Thousands of costumes and extras

Costume designer Ellen Mirojnick oversaw the creation of 5,300 costumes, with support from 175 artisans in Los Angeles and more than 500 craftspeople worldwide.

The scale extended to the film’s battle sequences. Around 2,000 extras were used to recreate the siege of Troy, while multiple Trojan Horses standing 35 feet tall were constructed for the production.

Actor Himesh Patel recalled being struck by the sheer magnitude of the scenes being filmed.

“The amount of actors and extras is kind of unfathomable,” he said, describing one of the early battle sequences.

Climbing mountains and rowing ships

The production’s commitment to realism often demanded physical effort from cast and crew. Filming scenes set in Ithaca required a daily 45-minute uphill trek to Castello di Santa Caterina.

Actor John Leguizamo hiked only once. He said, “I hiked one day. I was like ‘I’m not doing this again'. I took the helicopter.”

Meanwhile, Matt Damon and fellow cast members trained at a rowing camp to operate the 115-foot-long Draken Harald Hårfagre, a full-scale Viking longship used as Odysseus’ vessel.

“All of the actors had to learn how to row. We had to really move this hundred-ton ship,” Damon said.

Music, mythology and a quarter-billion-dollar budget

Composer Ludwig Göransson rented 35 bronze gongs while developing the film’s score, combining them with traditional instruments such as the aulos and lyre to create a distinctive sound inspired by the ancient world.

The production also filmed inside Greece’s Nestor’s Cave, whose 95-foot interior was used for the Cyclops sequence. Nolan revealed that Francisco Goya’s painting Saturn Devouring His Son influenced the creature’s design.

The film stars four Academy Award winners — Anne Hathaway, Charlize Theron, Lupita Nyong’o and Matt Damon — and is based on a poem comprising 12,109 lines that Nolan studied across multiple translations while writing the screenplay.

With a reported production budget of $250 million and a limited IMAX 70mm release at just 32 locations across the United States and Canada, The Odyssey stands among the largest and most technically ambitious productions of Nolan’s career.

The film opens in cinemas on Friday, 17 July 2026.