Christopher Nolan has defended his upcoming movie, The Odyssey, from complaints about historical accuracy, after some said Agamemnon’s armor looks like Batman’s.
The Odyssey, officially described as a “mythic action epic,” is an adaptation of Homer’s foundational saga, one of the major epics of ancient Greek literature, starring Hollywood heavyweights such as Matt Damon, Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Robert Pattinson, Lupita Nyong’o, Zendaya, and Charlize Theron.
Ever since we got our first look at Damon as Odysseus, the heroic king of Ithaca, Nolan’s film has faced questions about its historical accuracy — or inaccuracy, as some have put it. But those questions ramped up in December last year, when the debut trailer for The Odyssey revealed Agamemnon’s imposing, all black suit. As one commenter joked at the time: “Had no idea Ancient Greeks used Batman helmets and sailed in Viking ships. Seriously, how hard is it to look at the picture of what the real thing looked like?”
(Christopher Nolan is of course the director of the much-loved The Dark Knight Trilogy, so the Batman reference was fitting.)
“Nothing says Ancient Greece quite like wearing black and brown,” said another critic. “Kinda crazy to wear those dark colors in one of the sunniest places in the world.” “It looks like a bunch of dudes cosplaying ancient Greece in Wales,” another said. “A little colour wouldn’t hurt you, Nolan,” said another.
The historical accuracy debate not only included complaints about the color of the armor in The Odyssey, but the look of the material. Agamemnon, played by Benny Safdie, is the focus of these complaints, with some saying his armor looks “flimsy” and “plastic.” One commenter said: “I think the issue people have isn’t really about historical accuracy and more about the costumes looking boring as s**t.”
Now, in a profile in Time magazine, Nolan defended his movie from such complaints. The Odyssey is set at the end of the Bronze Age (a period of societal collapse in the Mediterranean basin during the late 13th to early 12th century BC), and Nolan started by saying our knowledge of the era is based on “very fragmentary archeological records.” He then insisted Agamemnon’s armor as it appears in the movie is feasible.
“There are Mycenaean daggers that are blackened bronze,” Nolan said. “The 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. 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.”
Nolan then said Homeric characters were initially depicted “in the manner of people living in Homer’s time,” roughly 400 to 500 years after the collapse of the Late Bronze Age, “so there’s a pretty strong case there for portraying things that way because that’s the way the first audience received the story.”
Some have suggested historical accuracy doesn’t really matter when it comes to The Odyssey. It features a giant, one-eyed monster and enchanting bird-women whose irresistible songs lure sailors to their deaths on rocky shores, among other mythical creatures. But there are parallels here between The Odyssee and Nolan’s 2014 movie, Interstellar, which used real-world science to predict and depict interactions with black holes. Some complained about the physics at play in Interstellar, and Nolan sounded philosophical about the historical accuracy complaints on The Odyssee, over a decade later.
“For Interstellar, you’re looking at, ‘What is the best speculation of the future?’ When you’re looking at the ancient past, it’s actually the same thing. ‘What is the best speculation and how can I use that to create a world?’” he said.
“Hopefully they’ll enjoy the film, even if they don’t agree with everything. We had a lot of scientists complain about Interstellar. But you just don’t want people to think that you took it on frivolously.”
The Odyssey hits theaters July 17, 2026. For more, check out IGN’s feature on Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey and Why It’s OK Everyone’s Speaking Plain Old American in It.
Image credit: Universal Pictures.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].
