During the summer, Elon Musk, recently crowned trillionaire and owner of social media site X (formerly Twitter), announced plans to use his AI tool, Grok Imagine, to create a “historically accurate” version of The Odyssey by the end of 2026.
Musk had been a vocal detractor of Christopher Nolan's adaptation of Homer's epic poem since certain details about the movie were revealed, and vowed to deliver a more faithful take on the classic tale.
The tech mogul called the acclaimed filmmaker an "anti-White racist" for casting Back Panther star Lupita Nyong'o as Helen of Troy, and has also boosted transphobic posts about Elliot Page (X-Men: Days of Future Past), who many incorrectly assumed was playing Achilles (he actually portrayed a young soldier named Sinon).
The complaints and boycotts from the "go woke, go broke" crowd didn't amount to much, since The Odyssey ended up making $1.796 billion worldwide to become Nolan's most profitable film to date.
Even so, Musk has been true to his word, and the first seven minutes of this “historically accurate and true to the art of Homer” AI-fuelled version of The Odyssey have been released online.
As you can probably imagine, the response has not been overly positive.
The Telegraph reviewed the opening scenes.
“[It's] so unsettling you can feel your eyeballs twitch at its sloppy gruesomeness … the glassy-eyed characters, with their expressionless voices, give the episode a zombie-like quality … Penelope looks completely different in each scene … a take on the tale of Troy that deserves to be put to the sword, burned to the ground and hidden forever beneath the sands of time.”
However, the critic did note that the battle sequences “have some of the epic quality of Zack Snyder’s Spartan romp 300.”
Check out "Episode 1" below along with some of the reactions.
"Christopher Nolan’s next film The Odyssey is a mythic action epic shot across the world using brand-new IMAX film technology. The film brings Homer’s foundational saga to IMAX film screens for the first time and opens in theaters everywhere on July 17, 2026," said Universal Pictures in a statement when the project was announced.
The poem has been adapted (sometimes very loosely) a number of times before, starting with the 1911 silent film by Giuseppe de Liguoro, and followed by 1954’s Ulysses starring Kirk Douglas. The Cohen Brothers' O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) is also based on the epic adventure, as is 2024’s The Return starring Ralph Fiennes.
Anime fans may also recall the '80s Ulysses 31 series, which put a futuristic spin on the tale.