Elon Musk has announced plans to produce a feature-length film adaptation of Homer’s Odyssey using his AI platform, Grok Imagine. The billionaire stated that the project will be “historically accurate and true to the art of Homer,” with a projected release before the end of the year. To support this, Musk shared a link to a three-minute video clip purportedly generated by Grok Imagine, which depicts a sequence featuring Odysseus and the nymph Calypso.
This initiative follows Musk’s vocal criticism of Christopher Nolan’s recent film, also titled The Odyssey, which stars Matt Damon as Odysseus and Anne Hathaway as Penelope. Prior to the film's release, Musk shared derogatory remarks regarding the casting of Black actor Lupita Nyong’o in the roles of Helen of Troy and Clytemnestra, and trans actor Elliot Page as Sinon. Musk accused the director of chasing awards and suggested that Nolan had “lost his integrity.”
Despite the backlash from Musk and other rightwing critics, the film has achieved significant commercial success, earning US$264 million—approximately £196 million or A$378 million—at the global box office during its opening weekend. It has also received positive reception from audiences, maintaining a 97% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Addressing the controversy earlier in May, Lupita Nyong’o stated that the cast is representative of the world and that she does not spend time formulating a defense against such criticism. Christopher Nolan also dismissed the pre-release backlash as irrelevant, noting that those participating in the discourse have not yet seen the film. Furthermore, the director was also withering in his assessment of the likely impact of artificial intelligence on film-making, saying: “The idea that it replaces human beings wholesale and human creativity, to me it’s a nonsense.” He added: “I’ve never seen a technology that’s been so successfully adopted by Wall Street and by investors and by tech companies that the public has so thoroughly rejected.”
