Matt Damon battles as Odysseus in The Odyssey trailer

By Casey Cooper-Fiske, Press Association Senior Entertainment Reporter

US actor Matt Damon can be seen battling enemies and the elements as Greek hero Odysseus in a new trailer for Christopher Nolan’s big screen adaptation of The Odyssey.

The film tells the story of the Homeric epic, which follows Odysseus, the Greek king of Ithaca, on his long and perilous journey home following the Trojan War as he encounters mythical beings such as the Cyclops Polyphemus, sirens and the nymph Calypso while attempting to reunite with his wife, Penelope.

In the trailer, Damon says in character: “We won a war, help me go home.”

Damon is also shown sailing and leading an army as Odysseus in the film, with the clip also giving a glimpse of some of the movie’s monsters.

Later scenes also show a crowd of suiters attempting to marry Penelope, played by Anne Hathaway, in her husband’s absence.

The Odyssey also stars Tom Holland, Robert Pattinson, Zendaya, Charlize Theron, and Lupita Nyong’o.

It will be Nolan's first film since 2023’s Oppenheimer, with the director also known for the Batman film trilogy The Dark Knight, 2017’s Dunkirk, 2014’s Interstellar, and Momento, released in 2000.

Oppenheimer, which won the 55-year-old his first Oscars for best director and best picture, told the story of Robert Oppenheimer, the US theoretical physicist who helped to develop the nuclear bomb during the Second World War.

The story of The Odyssey has inspired a number of previous films and TV series, including Ulysses (1954), O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000), and The Return (2024).