Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey will be rivalled by another movie of the ancient Greek epic this year — made entirely by AI.
An announcement teaser trailer for Odysseus: The Fall went live on YouTube today from director Ash Koosha, whose previous AI work Dreams of Violets managed to get selected by this year’s Tribeca Film Festival.
Reaction to the trailer has not been kind — and it is easy to see why. Deliberately designed to release up against Nolan’s long-awaited own take on The Odyssey, this AI version can only pale in comparison, without the star power of Hollywood actors, the ability to consistently render characters who actually look the same throughout, or indeed feature any shots longer than a few seconds.
The trailer, which The Hollywood Reporter states is designed as a showcase for AI film company Fountain0, features all sorts of AI weirdness: from jerkily moving characters to poor lip syncing, and voices that sound like they’re talking into a tin can.
Koosha’s previous film Dreams of Violets was an interesting experiment in making a 70-odd minute feature within the constraints of AI generation. Odysseus: The Fall, however, appears to be trying to ignore those same restraints for a 135-minute feature that wants to try and rival an actual blockbuster.
“Me: Mom, can we watch The Odyssey? Mom: We have Odyssey at home,” reads one YouTube comment on the trailer.
“We are entering the era of the Slopbuster,” reads another. “The mockbuster’s final form.”
“I like that we never got a shot over three seconds, no establishing shot of the main character or the purpose of the plot, such banger dialogue such as ‘The gods hates you,’ that the cyclops looks nothing like a cyclops and that both the fresh eye wound looks decades old and he changes design radically between the dungeon and on the beach (where he is facing away from the water while cursing Odysseus),” wrote a third.
Nolan himself recently addressed the topic of “AI slop”, and said he believed audiences still had the capacity to enjoy a three-hour Greek epic featuring actual human actors. “I’ve never seen a more rapid wholesale dismissal of a supposedly foundational jump in technology in my lifetime,” Nolan said of the growing AI backlash. “So much energy has been expended on bringing in AI, but if you look at that generation’s reaction, they’re utterly rejecting it.”
All 2 hours and 53 minutes of The Odyssey will set sail when it comes to theaters July 17, 2026. In addition to its star-studded cast, fans can expect a film that Nolan says he crafted to “do away” with “cultural prejudices” about the ancient world. It will also feature an enormous practical Cyclops. There’s no word yet on exactly when Odysseus: The Fall will debut, though it’ll cost $9.99 to rent from Fountain0 when it does.
Image credit: YouTube
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at [email protected] or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
