{"id":528699,"date":"2026-07-16T08:58:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T08:58:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/528699\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T08:58:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T08:58:10","slug":"the-cast-of-the-odyssey-gives-a-1-minute-recap-you-must-watch-before-the-movie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/528699\/","title":{"rendered":"The Cast of ‘The Odyssey’ Gives a 1-Minute Recap You Must Watch Before the Movie"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2018The Odyssey\u2019 <\/a>has taken over late-night television this week, with NBC handing an entire stretch of \u2018The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon\u2019 to Christopher Nolan\u2019s Homer adaptation ahead of its theatrical release. The network built a dedicated four-night takeover around the film, bringing a rotating lineup of stars to Studio 6B in the days leading up to the movie hitting theaters.<\/p>\n

The rollout kicked off with Tom Holland on Monday, followed by Matt Damon on Tuesday, Zendaya on Wednesday, and Lupita Nyong\u2019o closing things out on Thursday, the night before the film\u2019s release. Along the way, Fallon and his guests leaned into a series of Odyssey-themed bits, including a game of Cyclops Beer Pong between Holland and the host himself.<\/p>\n

The centerpiece of the week, though, arrived when Fallon and his team decided to see if they could accomplish something Homer never managed, telling the entire story of \u2018The Odyssey\u2019 in a fraction of the time. The result was a pre-taped musical number featuring Matt Damon, Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Robert Pattinson, Zendaya, Charlize Theron, Jon Bernthal, and Lupita Nyong\u2019o racing through the epic poem\u2019s biggest moments in exactly one minute.<\/p>\n

Fallon introduced the segment by telling viewers the show had teamed up with the cast to recap the whole story in exactly one minute, and what followed, as LateNighter reported, was a fast moving, rap style number that opened with a roll call of characters before diving straight into the plot. Lines included references to the Trojan Horse trick, with the cast rapping about hiding inside the horse to win the war, along with wordplay tied to the hero\u2019s journey home to Ithaca and his encounter with the Cyclops.<\/p>\n

The segment even worked in a nod to the poem\u2019s original structure, with a line joking that the cast could be Homer given how quickly they were getting through the story in six feet, a reference to the epic\u2019s hexameter verse. The whole bit balanced comedy with genuine affection for the source material, giving fans a condensed but surprisingly thorough primer on Odysseus\u2019 decade long journey before the film\u2019s nearly three hour runtime hit theaters.<\/p>\n

The stunt fits into a growing tradition of Fallon-built cast songs tied to major movie and television releases, following similar numbers built around \u2018Wicked\u2019, \u2018Mission Impossible The Final Reckoning\u2019, \u2018The Super Mario Bros Movie,\u2019 and \u2018Avengers: Infinity War\u2019 in years past. Each of those segments has followed a similar formula, taking a sprawling story and compressing it into a catchy, high-energy performance designed to spread quickly online.<\/p>\n

The week-long takeover also included additional Odyssey adjacent bookings beyond the core cast, with rapper and producer Travis Scott, who plays the bard Demodocus in the film, along with John Leguizamo and Nolan himself, all scheduled for follow-up appearances on the show the following week.<\/p>\n

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Given the sheer size of Nolan\u2019s cast and the scope of the source material, the Odyssey recap stands out even among that list, managing to touch on the war at Troy, the journey home, and several of the mythical creatures Odysseus encounters along the way, all without losing the rhythm of the song. The segment aired in the middle of the week\u2019s takeover, just days before \u2018The Odyssey\u2019 opened in theaters on July 17, following preview screenings the night before.<\/p>\n

Did \u2018The Odyssey\u2019 cast pull off the one-minute musical recap?<\/p>\n


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\u2018The Odyssey\u2019 stars Damon as Odysseus alongside Hathaway as Penelope, Holland as Telemachus, Zendaya as Athena, Nyong\u2019o as Helen of Troy and Clytemnestra, Pattinson as the suitor Antinous, Theron as Calypso and Bernthal as Menelaus.<\/p>\n

Have something to add? Let us know in the comments!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u2018The Odyssey\u2019 has taken over late-night television this week, with NBC handing an entire stretch of \u2018The Tonight…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":528700,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[156,111,139,69,437],"class_list":["post-528699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=528699"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528699\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/528700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=528699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=528699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=528699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}