Christopher Nolan’s confirmed new project, The Odyssey, is already creating a lot of speculation, but with one confirmed detail, it’s also confirming that it’s continuing a weirdly specific Hollywood trend. The movies of Christopher Nolan have stood out for his narrative and visual style, as well as for the topics he often addresses in his movies. The most common ones are time, idenтιтy, and memory, and even in stories that are adapted from other sources, Nolan has found a way to bring some of these topics and give the stories his unique touch.

That’s exactly what Nolan is now doing with his upcoming project The Odyssey, an epic fantasy-action movie based on Homer’s epic poem of the same name. What has earned The Odyssey so much attention and curiosity is its cast, with some former Nolan collaborators like Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, Robert Pattinson, Elliot Page, and Benny Safdie, and new arrivals to the Nolanverse, such as Tom Holland, Zendaya, Lupita Nyong’o, and Jon Bernthal. Now, with some plot details about The Odyssey confirmed, it’s also confirmed to be following a weirdly specific Hollywood trend thanks to Matt Damon.

The Odyssey Is Yet Another Movie About Matt Damon Trying To Get Back Home

Matt Damon’s Characters Just Want To Return Home

Homer’s The Odyssey tells the story of the legendary Greek king of Ithaca, Odysseus, on his journey to return home after the Trojan War to his wife, Penelope. On his way home, he comes across the Cyclops Polyphemus, the Sirens, and the witch goddess Circe. It’s unknown if Nolan’s adaptation will be loyal to Homer’s poem or if it will take some creative liberties, but what’s confirmed is that Damon is playing Odysseus, and the first official look at The Odyssey shows him in full costume.

The confirmation of Damon leading The Odyssey as Odysseus also confirms that Nolan is continuing the weirdly specific Hollywood trend of Matt Damon’s characters trying to get back home. Although he has explored different genres throughout his acting career, Matt Damon now has a list of movies where he needs to be rescued, for different reasons. Among them are some movies where his character’s main motivation and reason is to get back home, beginning with Saving Private Ryan, where he played the тιтle character (and it’s a self-explanatory тιтle).

In Nolan’s Interstellar, Damon’s Dr. Mann has been living on a far-away planet researching to see if it’s a suitable place for humanity. In an unexpected twist, Mann reveals his true intentions, which revolve around his desire to be rescued and taken back to Earth. The following year, Damon starred in The Martian as Mark Whatey, a botanist astronaut on Mars looking for a way to survive while NASA tries to bring him home. Now, Damon can add an epic fantasy to his list of movies where his character wants to get back home.

There Was No Better Choice For Christopher Nolan’s Odysseus Than Matt Damon

The Odyssey Is Matt Damon & Christopher Nolan’s Third Collaboration

As mentioned above, Matt Damon is one of Nolan’s previous collaborators who joined the cast of The Odyssey, but this is the first time he’s leading a Nolan movie. Damon and Nolan first worked together in Interstellar, where he played the surprise villain, though he wasn’t in it for long, and they reunited in 2023 in Oppenheimer, where Damon played Leslie Groves. Looking at the cast of The Odyssey and Damon’s career, it was clear that he was going to lead this new adventure.

Damon is no stranger to action movies, having starred in the Bourne movie series, and he knows how to handle dramatic roles quite well, making him the best choice to lead The Odyssey. It’s to be seen how different The Odyssey will be from the original poem, as well as whom the rest of the cast will play and how much their stories will differ from the source.