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By Griff Griffin
Contributing Pop Culture Writer
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“The Odyssey” could be the end of an era for Matt Damon.
The actor, who appeared on Netflix’s “Skip Intro” podcast to promote his new Netflix crime thriller “The Rip,” revealed “The Odyssey” might be his final proper movie.
“Doing ‘The Odyssey’ last year, it felt like my one chance in my life to make a David Lean movie, you know?” Damon said. “That I was making the last big movie on film that I was ever going to get to make.”
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For clarity, the actor doesn't appear to be suggesting he's done with movies and is all set for retirement - more that “The Odyssey” is such a massive movie it's hard to picture another one outdoing it later in Damon's career.
Director Chris Nolan shot the film, his 13th after 2023's “Oppenheimer,” entirely using Imax cameras. It's the first Hollywood feature film to do so.
‘The Odyssey’ Release Date
“The Odyssey" releases in the US July 17th, 2026, in both Imax and regular cinemas.
Damon detailed the staggering complex filming process on the “New Heights” podcast.
“Imax cameras are really loud. It sounds like a blender, like a Cuisinart in your face when the camera’s close to you. So there’s never been these dialogue [scenes in Imax],” Damon said. “They built this giant thing around the Imax for those dialogue scenes and a system of mirrors so your eye line would be close to the camera and you could talk to the other actor. The amount of work that went into figuring out how to do [that], because he wanted to do 100 percent Imax and he did it!”
'The Odyssey' Story
As per Universal's official synopsis: “Odysseus, king of Ithaca, embarks on a perilous journey to return home after the Trojan War.”
The creative process sounds like a revelation. Not only for the industry at large, but Damon himself, who says he's yet to recover from shooting the film. The actor says he's “still unpacking” the whole experience adding, “it did have a profound effect on me.”
By Damon's account, “The Odyssey” is a one-of-a-kind production it's difficult to imagine being repeated, at least not in his lifetime. A new Imax film casing called a ‘blimp’ was even created to reduce the noise.
“The blimp system is a game-changer,” Nolan told Empire. “You can be shooting a foot from [an actor’s] face while they’re whispering and get usable sound. What that opens up are intimate moments of performance on the world’s most beautiful format.”
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