{"id":543374,"date":"2026-07-10T21:23:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T21:23:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/543374\/"},"modified":"2026-07-10T21:23:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T21:23:09","slug":"christopher-nolan-says-odyssey-backlash-from-elon-musk-is-irrelevant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/543374\/","title":{"rendered":"Christopher Nolan Says ‘Odyssey’ Backlash From Elon Musk Is Irrelevant"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tChristopher Nolan<\/a> is not phased by the pre-release backlash that\u2019s been erupting on social media in the months leading up to his latest directorial effort, \u201cThe Odyssey<\/a>.\u201d The movie, a star-studded adaptation of Homer\u2019s Greek epic, has irked Elon Musk<\/a> and Trump\u2019s MAGA base over its casting choices and riled up historical purists over Nolan\u2019s armor design<\/a> and use of American accents and modern English dialogue. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cComes with the territory,\u201d Nolan told The Telegraph<\/a> about the film\u2019s pre-release backlash. \u201cBut look, these conversations that happen before people see the film \u2013 they\u2019re always irrelevant, because no one having them knows what the film actually is yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tNolan knew from the beginning that tackling \u201cThe Odyssey\u201d would ignite strong commentary online, and he\u2019s a self-professed veteran when it comes to tuning out pre-release outrage. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cRemember, I spent 10 years of my life dealing with Batman. When I came on to\u00a0\u2018Batman Begins,\u2019 writers and artists had been working on this beloved character for almost 65 years, and a lot of freighted thoughts were out there about what he represents. And what I learnt over my time on that trilogy is you can\u2019t worry about any of that at all. What you have to do is honor the original text by interpreting it in the strongest way you personally can.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIn the end, fans of the property \u2013 even when we were doing something that was not what they would have done \u2013 enjoyed the sincerity of the attempt to put as good a version of it on screen as we could,\u201d Nolan continued. \u201cAll I can do is make the best film I possibly can in the most sincere way. It\u2019s very different from how anyone else would do it, but that\u2019s what adaptation is.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tElon Musk<\/a> has been one of the most vocal opponents of \u201cThe Odyssey\u201d on social media. He came out swinging<\/a>\u00a0against the movie in February after word got out that Lupita Nyong\u2019o would be playing Helen of Troy. Musk\u00a0commented<\/a>: \u201cChris Nolan has lost his integrity.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tConservative commentator Matt Walsh used X to insult Nyong\u2019o, writing: \u201cNot one person on the planet actually thinks that Lupita Nyong\u2019o is \u2018the most beautiful woman in the world.\u2019 But Christopher Nolan knows that he would be called racist if he gave\u2019 the most beautiful woman\u2019 role to a white woman. Nolan is technically talented but a coward.\u201d Musk followed up by claiming that Nolan \u201cwants the awards,\u201d which is why he thinks Nolan is changing the races of characters in \u201cThe Odyssey.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn additional X posts, Musk re-tweeted posts that mocked\u00a0Elliot Page\u2019s masculinity<\/a>\u00a0and claimed that Nolan was stomping all over Homer\u2019s grave because of his casting choices. The MAGA base was consumed with outrage over the idea that Page could be playing the legendary Greek warrior Achillies, even though it was an unsubstantiated claim at the time. It turns out Page is not even playing Achillies in the movie. Nolan cast his \u201cInception\u201d actor as the warrior Sinon.<\/p>\n

\n\tCriticism was also lobbed at the armor design in the movie, which many on social media felt resembled Batman\u2019s more modern-looking Batsuit.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThere are Mycenaean daggers that are blackened bronze,\u201d Nolan told Time magazine earlier this year in defense of his design. \u201cThe theory is they probably could have blackened bronze in those days. You take bronze, you add more gold and silver to it and then use sulfur\u2026 With Agamemnon, Ellen [Mirojnick], our costume designer, is trying to communicate how elevated he is relative to everyone else. You do that through materials that would be very expensive.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe Odyssey\u201d opens in theaters July 17 from Universal Pictures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Christopher Nolan is not phased by the pre-release backlash that\u2019s been erupting on social media in the months…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":543375,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[321,50678,605,93,61,60,83194],"class_list":["post-543374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-christopher-nolan","tag-elon-musk","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-the-odyssey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=543374"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543374\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/543375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=543374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=543374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=543374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}