‘The Odyssey’ is in theaters July 17

The Odyssey’s latest trailer is showing off Robert Pattinson’s villain side.

On Tuesday, May 5, Universal Pictures released a new trailer for Christopher Nolan’s upcoming action epic based on the ancient Greek epic poem known as Homer’s Odyssey.

Matt Damon portrays the film’s title character, who attempts to return to his home island Ithaca decades after he departed to fight in the mythical Trojan War. Tom Holland plays his son Telemachus, while Anne Hathaway is Odysseus’ wife Penelope.

The film’s cast also includes Lupita Nyong’o, Elliot Page, Mia Goth, Charlize Theron, Benny Safdie, John Leguizamo, Jon Bernthal and Zendaya, among others.

An official synopsis for the movie simply describes The Odyssey as “a mythic action epic shot across the world using brand new IMAX film technology.”

The Odyssey
The Odyssey poster.Universal Pictures

Academy Award-winning filmmaker Nolan, 55, told the Associated Press in a recent interview that his new epic won’t have as long a runtime as his 2023 movie Oppenheimer, which ran for three hours.

“One of the things that’s really important to me is to be showing the film wherever possible on IMAX film, projecting the format, because we shot the entire movie on IMAX film, and the longest we’ve ever been able to get onto the IMAX projector is three hours,” he said. “So we know it’s less than three hours. I can say the film is shorter than Oppenheimer. It’s still an epic, it’s an epic film as the subject matter demands, but it is shorter.”

The Odyssey Matt Damon
Matt Damon in The Odyssey.Universal Pictures

In April, Nolan appeared at CinemaCon in Las Vegas to promote the movie. He described The Odyssey as “an absolute nightmare to film. . . in all the right ways” during his presentation.

“He was an incredible leader for us,” Nolan said of Damon during that appearance. “He was just there out on the boats, up the mountains, in the caves, in beating sunshine, in sideways rain and wind, so many different places that we went to,” Nolan said of Damon’s performance in the film. “We went all over the world to make this film because this is The Odyssey. You’ll be pleased to hear how difficult it was for us because it’s meant to be difficult. That’s the nature of the story.”

The Odyssey is in theaters July 17.