Christopher Nolan revealed that “The Odyssey” will be shorter than “Oppenheimer.”
In a conversation with the Associated Press published Tuesday, Nolan revealed that his highly anticipated film would not be as long as his last film – which netted him a Best Picture and Best Director Academy Award. Despite a shorter length, he promised a massive scale.
“It’s an epic film, as the subject matter demands,” Nolan said. “But it is shorter.”
He added: “There’s a massive amount of pressure. Anyone taking on ‘The Odyssey’ is taking on the hopes and dreams of people for epic movies everywhere and that comes with a huge responsibility. What I learned from [making ‘The Dark Knight’ trilogy] is that what people want from a movie about a beloved story, a beloved set of characters, is they want a strong and sincere interpretation. They want to know that a filmmaker has gone to the mat for it. I really tried to make the best film possible.”
Here is a full list of runtimes for all 12 of Nolan’s films:
- “Following” (1998) – 1h 9m
- “Memento” (2000) – 1h 53m
- “Insomnia” (2002) – 1h 58m
- “Batman Begins” (2005) – 2h 20m
- “The Prestige” (2006) – 2h 10m
- “The Dark Knight” (2008) – 2h 32m
- “Inception” (2010) – 2h 28m
- “The Dark Knight Rises” (2012) – 2h 44m
- “Interstellar” (2014) – 2h 49m
- “Dunkirk” (2017) – 1h 46m
- “Tenet” (2020) – 2h 30m
- “Oppenheimer” (2023) – 3h
“The Odyssey” is making movie history regardless of its length. The film is the first to be shot entirely on Imax cameras rather than switching between various types of cameras and aspect ratios. Nolan brought more hype toward the film’s scale when he showed a snippet of it at CinemaCon earlier in April.
“‘The Odyssey’ is a story that has fascinated generation after generation for 3,000 years. It is not a story, it is THE story,” Nolan told exhibitors at the time. “This is a story about family. this is a story about a father’s desperate journey to return home, not just to reclaim his kingdom, to save his wife, the Queen, who’s been managing this king for 20 years, his absence, who’s fighting to save her son from increasingly hostile world.”
