Inside The Odyssey Stunts That Rival The Dark Knight and Spider-Man: No Way Home — "Hardest Thing I’ve Ever Done"

Christopher Nolan is apparently putting everyone through the wringer again. Stunt coordinator George Cottle just said Nolan's The Odyssey is the toughest gig of his career, which is saying something when your resume includes The Dark Knight, Spider-Man: No Way Home, and Deadpool & Wolverine.

Cottle dropped the note on his Instagram Story, and fans picked it up on X. The Nolan Archive account flagged it on December 23, 2025, and, yeah, the hype machine lit up.

'the hardest thing I've ever done'

Why this one sounds like a gauntlet

Nolan's reputation for keeping things practical is not a cute anecdote; it drives how these movies are made. For The Odyssey, he is telling a decade-long journey home set around 1200 BCE, which means ships, seas, cramped contraptions, massive battles, and the occasional monster. Think soldiers squaring up with a Cyclops in spaces that are not exactly crane-friendly.

Instead of building everything on a green screen and calling it a day, Nolan leaned on real locations and built-out set pieces. He also shot with IMAX cameras, as usual. He told Empire they used a 'blimp' housing to knock down the camera noise, but those rigs are still giant, heavy bricks. Now picture threading those through tight environments (including the Trojan horse) and then asking Cottle to stage elaborate fights and stunts around them. That combination is exactly the kind of logistical headache that makes a veteran stunt coordinator call it the hardest job he has ever done.

If you wondered how this could be more stunt-heavy than something like Deadpool & Wolverine, there is your answer: water work, real-world locations, creature encounters in tight quarters, and IMAX-scale toys that do not bend to your will.

What that means for the movie

Reading between the lines, expect big, tactile sequences you can feel — sea sprays, splintering wood, armor clattering — plus claustrophobic creature beats and large-scale battles captured with those huge IMAX frames. It sounds less like a VFX-forward fantasy and more like a boots-on-the-ground myth where the crew had to muscle reality into place.

The essentials

• Director: Christopher Nolan
• Cast: Matt Damon, Tom Holland, Zendaya, Robert Pattinson
• Release date: July 17, 2026
• Studio: Universal Pictures
• Stunts: Coordinated by George Cottle (The Dark Knight, Spider-Man: No Way Home, Deadpool & Wolverine, A House of Dynamite)

Short version: everyone on The Odyssey sounds like they bled for it. If Cottle's bar is that high and this cleared it, expect something fierce.