If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, people are really, really loving Christopher Nolan this week. With his latest film, The Odyssey, now in theaters, multiple production houses have teamed up to make, wait for it, The Odyssey, but as a TV show. What a great idea!
Tentatively titled Odysseus, after the story’s main character, the show will be a joint production between the Greek distributor Tanweer, a U.S. company called Tectonic, and a U.S.-Armenian company called USATV. Karl Gajdusek, who was a showrunner of the first season of Stranger Things, will showrun here, and it’ll be directed by Roel Reiné, who did episodes of Halo and Wu Assassins.
So what’s different besides the format? Well, it seems, a lot. Deadline, which broke the news, was told this take on The Odyssey is “visceral, and muscular—the real Bronze Age world of blood, ships, betrayal, and characters trying to survive the era that inspired Homer’s epic. The emphasis on real history lets the story collide with the wider convulsions of the age leading up to the Bronze Age collapse breaking the known world apart into legend.”
Oh. So. The realistic version of The Odyssey? Got it.
“There’s something huge about taking on this epic story in the most grounded and realpolitik way we can,” Gajdusek said. “The mythical stations of Odysseus’s journey are beautifully rendered by Homer as metaphorical journeys into self, but there’s also a real under all that. Choices. Lives and loves lost and saved. And for us to set out to tell that real, necessarily sweeping away all adornment, is thrilling. We get to take the audience backstage, meet the Bronze Age flesh and blood characters that birthed the spectacle, and live with their true story.”
Now, of course, The Odyssey has been around for almost 3,000 years and adapted probably as many times. There’s certainly room for adaptations after Nolan’s new film. And, in a TV format, you can probably dig more into the story while also riding a bit of the name recognition afforded by the new film. It’s just that with a small group of online trolls attacking The Odyssey, a work of fiction, for being too woke and too unrealistic, specifically referring to your version as “grounded” sure seems like you’re pandering to the wrong crowd. The crowd who’d be excited to see a fully AI version of the film, for example. (Which also exists.)
Or, maybe, this is just a solid, opportunistic idea that will end up being fantastic. We’ll find out when and if it all comes to fruition. You can read more about this adaptation, which is planning to shoot on location in Greece and Armenia early next year, over at Deadline.
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