Fans Slam The Odyssey Trailer for Muddy Visuals and a Cropped Frame

Christopher Nolan dropped the first trailer for his Greek epic The Odyssey, and yeah, the movie itself looks massive. The upload? That is what everyone is mad about.

What the trailer actually shows

Matt Damon is Odysseus, bruised and stubborn, trying to get home after the Trojan War. Anne Hathaway is Penelope, holding things together, and Tom Holland shows up as their son, Telemachus. The footage teases storms, monsters, and a lot of men barely surviving. It is big, mythic, and very Nolan.

"After years of war... no one could stand between my men... and home... not even me."

Worth noting: several headliners do not appear in this first look. Robert Pattinson, Zendaya, Lupita Nyong'o, Charlize Theron, Jon Bernthal, and John Leguizamo are in the cast but nowhere in the teaser.

Why fans are heated about the upload

The friction point is simple. Nolan used newly developed IMAX tech to shoot this thing, which sets an expectation for pristine presentation. The official online trailer clocks in at two minutes... and shows up in 1080p with a cropped frame. Cue the comments.

• "WHY WOULD YOU NOT F--- UPLOAD IN 4K ARE YOU CRAZY"
• "1080p and cropped ratio?! Are you f--- kidding me IMAX?! Stand out already!"
• "Shot entirely with IMAX, but trailer is in 1080p."
• "Imagine filming your movie with the highest quality camera ever invented, and then your marketing team fails to upload the trailer in 4K. LMAO."
• "This ain't the IMAX trailer we needed. Where is the 1.43:1 version??"

So the reaction is not about the footage itself, which looks like a proper Nolan odyssey. It is about marketing rolling out a glossy IMAX production with a not-so-glossy web encode. The disconnect is doing the rounds.

Release date

The Odyssey opens in theaters on July 17, 2026 in both the UK and the US.