Christopher Nolan's Greek epic 'The Odyssey' is set to be released next week, and the film has been the target of significant and justified criticism for the many odd and frankly befuddling choices Nolan has made in the adaptation and casting. It seems out of character for Nolan, who defied Hollywood's DEI mandates for his Oscar-winning 'Oppenheimer' to make a movie that captured Oppenheimer's rise to become the father of the atom bomb with decent (albeit dramatized) historical accuracy.
And it's not like the opportunities to DEI 'Oppenheimer' weren't there. Nolan could have easily cast a Black actress as Jean Tatlock, Oppenheimer's Communist lover. That role went to Florence Pugh instead. He could have made a 'trans man' one of Oppenheimer's lab partners. He didn't.
Weird.
But somehow, the ancient Greek epic is the right place to insert Lupita Nyong'o as Black Helen of Troy and Elliot (Ellen) Page as a Greek soldier. He did this while using a feminist translation of 'The Odyssey,' which can only spell trouble, and which wasn't helped by Nyong'o's recent comments about Homer and giving women screen time.
The criticisms of the adaptation and casting are legitimate, and this is a pattern that always repeats itself. Hollywood takes a well-known or beloved IP and they gut it of what makes it well-known and beloved. Then they wear the IP as a skin suit while they inject their politics into it for 'modern audiences.'
(Those 'modern audiences' don't exist, by the way, and box office receipts prove that.)
Yet instead of listening to the people objecting to the movie, Hollywood, the media, and the Left always respond in the same way: critics are simply bigots. The movie wasn't made for them. Etc., etc.
This time, the criticisms are dismissed as 'racism and transphobia.'
The Odyssey backlash is transphobia and racism under the guise of "historical accuracy." That's it.
— Paul Tassi (@PaulTassi) July 6, 2026
This is rich.
When Scarlett Johansson was cast as a transgender prostitution ringleader in 1970s Pittsburgh, the Left raised a stir and got Johansson removed from the project because she's not trans. Likewise, they demand that only Black actors voice Black characters, disabled actors portray disabled characters, etc. etc.
But that never works the other way.
Helen of Troy was not Black, but they applaud Black casting.
Neither was Severus Snape, the 'Harry Potter' character played by Alan Rickman across the eight films. In the books, Snape is regularly described as white, pale, sallow, etc. Despite that, Snape is voiced by a Black actor in the full-cast audio editions of the book, and in the coming HBO series, Snape is played by Black actor Paapa Essiedu.
The more mind-boggling casting is Paige as a Greek warrior. There were rumors that she was cast as Achilles, which would have been insulting, but it seems that's not true. Others speculated she was playing Elpenor, one of Odysseus's men who fell off Circe's roof while drunk and wasn't properly buried. But it seems she's playing Sinon, who tricked the Trojans into accepting the Trojan horse.
There's just one problem with that: Sinon does not appear in The Odyssey.
On top of that, look at Paige next to actual men.
She’s so small lmao no one believes this is a man pic.twitter.com/UYdSzUEUXU
— Kangmin Lee | 이강민 (@kangminlee) July 7, 2026
There is no reality in which anyone believes she's a Greek warrior. She is petite and was shoehorned into this movie for reasons that defy logic.
Will the movie do well? I'm not sure. The rule of thumb for a hit is that the film earns at least three times its budget at the box office. The official budget for 'The Odyssey' is $250 million, which means it needs — at a minimum — $750 million to break even. With a runtime of nearly three hours, it's also limited in how many screenings can run each day. I don't know if Nolan has the drawing power to overcome all these hurdles.
We'll know what is coming after opening weekend, as the second-weekend totals usually drop off a cliff.
Variety tried to play this card not too long ago, and every production they pointed to — 'Snow White,' the myriad 'Star Wars' offerings, and Amazon's 'Rings of Power — has one thing in common: they all failed, epically. The pattern suggests that 'The Odyssey' may follow the same path.
And while the same people who demand proper representation in the media and on the Left scream about casting Black actors as Black characters, etc. they suddenly don't seem to care about casting Greeks in a Greek epic. The Greek media slammed Nolan and the production for not having a single Greek actor in the cast. Not one.
Not one DEI warrior went to bat for them, and they never will.
They could go out and write their own movies and cast Lupita Nyong'o and Paige as characters they created. Because they don't want to. The destruction of the foundations of Western civilization is the point. The erasure of the cultures that built the West is the point. That's why they don't actually address the criticisms but dismiss them as racism and transphobia.
Well, those accusations don't hold water with the critics. Call us racist. Call us transphobic. We do not care. We are right, and we have a point. That's why we're being smeared. The Left cannot defend these casting choices, not if they adhere to their own rules (and they never do).
'The Odyssey' casting is a joke, and Nolan should be embarrassed and ashamed.
