MAGA conservatives hit out at 'woke' The Odyssey as Elon Musk offers to pay $100 million for new adaptation
Elon Musk has offered to hand Mel Gibson $100 million to make his own version of The Odyssey, after a wave of conservative commentators tore into Christopher Nolan's blockbuster adaptation over its casting choices.
The billionaire has spent months attacking Nolan's take on Homer's epic, accusing the director of 'desecrating' the source material by casting Elliot Page and Lupita Nyong'o in prominent roles.
Musk has claimed the choices amount to disrespect toward Greek culture, and has now pitched Gibson as the man to deliver a 'historically accurate' alternative, backing it with a nine-figure sum.
Musk is far from alone in his criticism.
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Daily Wire host Matt Walsh, who describes himself as a 'theocratic fascist', posted on X that the film was 'just as woke as you fear, if not more so', branding it 'disjointed, dull, self-serious' and singling out the 'DEI casting' as a distraction from the story.
Conservative podcaster Benny Johnson and Fox commentator Megyn Kelly have made similar arguments, with Kelly claiming Helen of Troy was 'written as a white person', a claim classicists dispute given Helen's mythological, rather than historical, origins.
Why are conservatives divided over The Odyssey?
The backlash has split the right rather than united it. Daily Wire co-founder Ben Shapiro, who called the film a 'masterpiece' in his review, argued that critics fixated on casting are 'missing the Biblical forest for the woke trees.'
Posting to X, Shapiro pointed to the film's central 'Zeus' law', under which characters are urged to treat others as they'd wish to be treated because 'anyone might be a god,' arguing the concept is lifted almost directly from Christian morality rather than authentic Greek myth.
Shapiro did concede that casting transgender actor Elliot Page as Sinon was 'silly and egregious', aligning him with other critics on that point.
But he dismissed the row over Nyong'o's casting as a 'dumbass discussion', and pushed back on Johnson's earlier prediction that the film would 'bomb' at the box office.
Fox host Lara Trump, daughter-in-law of President Donald Trump, also praised the film during a Fox & Friends segment, saying she loves "things on the big screen that make you want to go to the movie theater." Her co-host Griff Jenkins called it a 'visual masterpiece' at minimum.
How well is The Odyssey actually performing at the box office?
Despite the political noise, the numbers tell a different story. The film holds a 95 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes, the highest of Nolan's career, and became the fastest movie to reach one million 'watched' markers on Letterboxd, hitting the milestone in just six days.
It opened to $124.5 million domestically and $264.1 million worldwide, already clearing its reported $250 million budget within days.
Nyong'o has previously defended her casting, calling The Odyssey a 'mythological story' with a cast 'representative of the world', while Nolan has dismissed the criticism as 'irrelevant', noting much of it came before critics had actually seen the film.
The Odyssey: What you need to know
Written: Between 725 BC and 675 BC, so more than 2,500 years ago
Based on a true story? Mostly no (cyclops arenāt real). Historians are unsure if the Trojan War really happened
Who wrote The Odyssey? Homer, but historians don't know much about him and debate if he is a single person or a group of poets
How long is the movie? 2hrs, 52mins - best go to the toilet beforehand
Where was the movie filmed? The Hellenic Film Commission explained Nolan and co filmed at several locations in the Peloponnese, including Nestorās Cave, Voidokilia Beach and Almyrolaka Beach, which are all on the island of Pylos; Methoni Castle, at a port town of the same name in southwestern Greece; and Acrocorinth, a monolith overlooking the ancient city of Corinth.
According to Vogue, filming also took place in Morocco, in Marrakech, Tahanaoute, El Haouz, Essaouira and Ouarzazate. The cast and crew were also spotted on the Sicilian island of Favignana, while they filmed in Iceland for the underworld scenes.
Continuing their whistlestop tour of Europe, the Odyssey team also filmed in Scotland, along the Moray Firth Coast and at Findlater Castle and Culbin Forest.
The Odyssey in IMAX 70mm vs normal cinema screens: Helpfully, the film's website shows different versions of the trailer in six different formats, all with different aspect ratios. You can see the difference between IMAX 70mm (warning you now, there are only 25 IMAX 70mm screens in the whole of the US) and the standard 35mm format.
The Odyssey is in cinemas now.
Topics:Ā Christopher Nolan, Film and TV
Thomas Bamford