When you think of Christopher Nolan’s movies, what’s the first one that comes to mind? For me, it’s Batman Begins, as it was the first entry in Nolan’s filmography I ever saw, and it remains one of my favorite live-action Batman movies. So you can imagine my surprise to have learned that Nolan scored Christian Bale’s first outing as Bruce Wayne in what’s been described as a “consolation prize” after being passed over for another Warner Bros. Pictures blockbuster.
Christopher Nolan shared in an interview with Empire Magazine (via World of Reel) that had things gone according to the original plan, he would have helmed Troy as his fourth theatrical film, following 1998s Following, 2000’s Memento and 2002’s Insomnia. However, it was the scrapping of a different DC movie that led to him being kicked off the job, with the filmmaker saying:
I was originally hired by Warner Bros. to direct Troy. Wolfgang [Petersen] had developed it, and so when the studio decided not to proceed with his superhero movie [‘Batman Vs Superman’], he wanted it back.
Released in 2004, Troy was a loose adaptation of Homer’s The Iliad that condensed the Trojan War into a span of just weeks rather than an entire decade. It starred Brad Pitt, Eric Bana, Sean Bean, Diane Kruger, Brian Cox, Brendan Gleeson, Rose Byrne, Saffron Burrows and Orlando Bloom, among others. Although met with mixed critical reception in theaters (the director’s cut was much more well received), Troy raked in nearly $500 million at the worldwide box office, making it the eight highest-grossing movie of that year. It was the late Wolfgang Petersen’s penultimate Hollywood production, with Poseidon following in 2006.
So when Wolfgang Petersen returned to Troy, after that Batman vs. Superman movie fell through, David Goyer, who co-wrote Batman Begins, said that Warner Bros.’ president gave Nolan the “consolation prize” that was Begins. I think we can all agree that this worked out for the better, as Begins successfully revitalized the Batman film series, spawned the even more successful sequels The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises, and is arguably still influencing superhero movies to this day. However, Nolan remained keen on exploring Homer’s world of Ancient Greek mythology, saying:
At the end of the day, it was a world that I was very interested to explore. So it’s been at the back of my mind for a very long time. Certain images, particularly. How I wanted to handle the Trojan horse, things like that.
Luckily for him, he’s finally getting to scratch this itch over at Universal Pictures with The Odyssey, a.k.a. the follow-up to The Iliad. Officially announced last December, Christopher Nolan’s film adaptation stars Matt Damon as Odysseus, who embarks on a ten-year journey to return to his wife and son after fighting in the Trojan War for the same amount of time. Damon’s costars include Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Zendaya, Lupita Nyong’o, Robert Pattinson, Charlize Theron, Jon Bernthan and John Leguizamo, among many others.
We’ll see the fruits of Christopher Nolan’s labor on this cinematic undertaking when The Odyssey is released July 17 on the 2026 movies calendar. Troy and Batman Begins can respectively be streamed on AMC+ (which you can add on to your Amazon Prime Video subscription) and with an HBO Max subscription.
