• Bandai SH Figuarts action figure listings have leaked plot details for Spider-Man: Brand New Day, describing Peter Parker as living “alone, erased from everyone’s memory” and undergoing “uncontrollable transformations” — language widely interpreted as pointing toward a Man-Spider arc
• A separate figure listing confirms Savage Hulk (not Smart Hulk) will appear in the film; Mark Ruffalo’s presence as Bruce Banner was shown in the first trailer, but Marvel had not officially confirmed his green alter ego would appear
• The film is also bringing back organic web-shooting — a power Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man had in Sam Raimi’s trilogy but that never carried over to Tom Holland’s MCU version, which uses mechanical web-shooters
• Kevin Feige told press the film is “focused on the classic elements of Spider-Man” — a significant reset from the cosmic and multiversal stakes of Holland’s previous three films
• Brand New Day, directed by Destin Daniel Cretton, is releasing this summer; the cast includes the Hulk, the Punisher, Tombstone, and Scorpion, alongside new images spotlighting Daredevil villain connections

Two months out from release, Spider-Man: Brand New Day is keeping most of its plot under wraps. That changed this week — not through an official Marvel announcement, but through toy listings.

Bandai’s SH Figuarts line of action figures, sourced via French retailer France-Figures, included product descriptions that are doing a lot of narrative heavy lifting. Per ComingSoon, the Peter Parker figure’s description reads: “Peter Parker lives alone, erased from everyone’s memory. In Brand New Day, he faces new threats in New York while undergoing uncontrollable transformations.” A separate listing for a Hulk figure confirms he appears in Savage form — the out-of-control green version, not the calm, articulate Smart Hulk seen in recent MCU entries.

The “uncontrollable transformations” language, combined with the teaser footage that showed Parker with black eyes and what appeared to be organic webbing growing from his wrists, has fed months of speculation that the film will feature a Man-Spider arc — a storyline from the comics in which Peter Parker’s spider-half begins to take over his human biology. Nothing has been officially confirmed, but the toy copy isn’t exactly subtle.

Back to Basics — With a Twist

Kevin Feige, speaking to press ahead of the film, framed Brand New Day as a deliberate course correction after three films that sent Spider-Man to space, into the multiverse, and up against Thanos. “Brand New Day is focused on the classic elements of Spider-Man,” Feige told Comic Book Movie. Peter Parker is back in New York, broke and anonymous, fighting street-level crime after the events of No Way Home wiped him from everyone’s memory.

Part of that classicism includes a notable callback: organic web-shooting is returning. In Sam Raimi’s trilogy, Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man generated webs biologically, a controversial departure from the comics that many fans actually came to love. Holland’s MCU Spider-Man has always used mechanical web-shooters built by Tony Stark. The return of organic webbing — apparently tied to Peter’s physical changes in the film — reconnects the character to both the Raimi era and his comic origins simultaneously.

The full cast picture is still coming into focus. Images released this week spotlight connections to Daredevil’s villain world. Confirmed appearances include the Hulk (in Savage form, per the toy leak), the Punisher, Tombstone, and Scorpion. Destin Daniel Cretton, who directed Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, is at the helm. Spider-Man: Brand New Day arrives in theaters this summer.

The post Toy Leaks Just Revealed Major ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ Plot Details — Savage Hulk, Organic Webs, and a Man-Spider Transformation appeared first on Cream.

• Zendaya says she “could have cried” watching fiancé Tom Holland film The Odyssey, though they share no scenes together
• Matt Damon reveals Christopher Nolan called Zendaya’s performance “perfect” — the highest praise he’s ever heard Nolan give
• Damon and Holland spent the rest of production playfully complaining that neither of them ever came close to that level of praise
• Zendaya plays the goddess Athena while juggling Euphoria Season 3 and Dune: Part Three simultaneously
• The Odyssey opens in theaters July 17, with Spider-Man: Brand New Day following on July 31

Zendaya didn’t have a single scene with Tom Holland in The Odyssey — but she was still watching him closely. And what she saw nearly brought her to tears.

“I could have cried, I was so proud,” the actress told ELLE of watching Holland on set of Christopher Nolan’s sweeping adaptation of Homer’s epic. It’s a sweet window into a relationship that’s been playing out in real time for nearly a decade — two people who fell in love on a Marvel set, now watching each other grow into something bigger.

“And then Spider-Man was a dream; I get to go to work every day with my best friend, the person that I love,” she added. “We bring our dogs to work; it’s like a family affair. We grew up on those movies! It’s like coming home.”

Holland and Zendaya first met during a 2016 chemistry read for Spider-Man: Homecoming, where he was cast as Peter Parker and she as Michelle “MJ” Jones-Watson. They went public as a couple in July 2021, got engaged in late 2024, and if you believe Zendaya’s longtime stylist Law Roach — they may have already quietly gotten married. (In March, Zendaya herself fueled the speculation by telling French outlet Views that a “perfect marriage” doesn’t exist.)

The Only Person Who Got a ‘Perfect’ From Christopher Nolan

Here’s the thing about working with Christopher Nolan: the man is not handing out gold stars. Matt Damon, who plays Odysseus in the film, explained the dynamic with characteristic bluntness.

“Chris is known for being very circumspect. So when you do a take, it’s not like he says, ‘That was great.’ He’ll go, ‘Yep, good. Okay.’ And that is the equivalent of the greatest praise you could ever get,” Damon told ELLE. “Zendaya, on the other hand — there were takes where she did one thing, she did this amazing scene, and he said, ‘Cut.’ And then he went, ‘Perfect.'”

The fallout was immediate and, honestly, hilarious.

“And literally, Tom [Holland] and I were obsessed with this. She got a ‘perfect’? I’ve never even gotten a ‘great.’ She got a ‘perfect’? He and I bitched about it for the entire rest of the film. ‘Did you get anything today?’ ‘No, I got a ‘good — moving on.’ ‘Yeah, me too.'”

Damon didn’t hold it against her for long. “So it was this amazing ability she had to come in and really put herself in there and blow everybody away, and then just go back to shooting ‘Euphoria,'” he said.

That detail — going back to shoot Euphoria — is not a throwaway line. Zendaya was running three major productions at once. In her own ELLE cover story interview, she described the logistical reality of it all: “I remember being on set for Euphoria; it was a night shoot at a ranch. I was so tired, but I was also learning my Chakobsa lines for Dune. And then I started writing out my lines to memorize for that quick turnaround trip I was going to make to Iceland for The Odyssey.”

She paused on what was really at stake. “It’s not like I have a lot of lines in The Odyssey, but I was working with Christopher Nolan! The most embarrassing thing in life would be messing up my lines, which did happen once.”

Nolan, for his part, seemed unbothered by any stumbles. “We would be in the maddest, craziest situations, just all of us fighting the elements, tearing our hair out, all these things going on, and she would sort of parachute in from her other job with this sense of true grace and poise,” he said. “I mean, she’s literally playing a goddess; it’s a tall order. She’s a true movie star, but also an incredible actor.”

The Women at the Heart of The Odyssey

Zendaya plays Athena, goddess of wisdom and war, serving as guide and protector to Damon’s Odysseus throughout his journey. It’s a role without a ton of screen time — but clearly one that left a mark on everyone who witnessed it being filmed.

She’s one of four iconic actresses anchoring Nolan’s vision of the women who drive Homer’s story forward. Anne Hathaway plays Penelope, the fiercely loyal queen of Ithaca who spends 20 years fending off over a hundred suitors while her husband is away. “We think about Penelope as a model of patience,” Hathaway said. “But I was interested in the raw edge of her. I was interested in the fury, the emotion, and the passion that she would have had to ride for him for those 20 years.” It’s Hathaway’s third collaboration with Nolan, after The Dark Knight Rises and Interstellar, and Nolan noted a visible shift in her work: “There’s a maturity to her performances now… Her work has a sense of quiet calm to it that’s really remarkable.”

Lupita Nyong’o takes on a fascinating dual role — both Helen of Troy and her sister Clytemnestra — while Charlize Theron plays Calypso, the sea nymph who holds Odysseus captive for seven years. Theron used the character to say something larger: “Even though she’s a goddess, she is really longing for connection… there’s something to be said about women living their lives today in a powerful manner, and yet a lot of our rights are being taken away every single day.”

The four women cover ELLE’s summer 2026 issue, and the film has already sold out multiple opening IMAX 70mm screenings — a full year before its release.

The Odyssey opens July 17. Two weeks later, Holland and Zendaya will be back together on screen where it all started — Spider-Man: Brand New Day hits theaters July 31. Two movies, one summer, one couple. Not a bad coming home.

The post Zendaya ‘Could Have Cried’ Watching Tom Holland on The Odyssey Set appeared first on Cream.

• Marvel released a new behind-the-scenes featurette highlighting practical stunt work in Spider-Man: Brand New Day
• Tom Holland says the film has “some of the best action” in any Spider-Man movie, with the most stunts shot in-camera
• Director Destin Daniel Cretton confirms the sequence — featuring a tank chase on Edinburgh streets dressed as New York — is the film’s opening action set piece
• Spider-Man: Brand New Day opens July 31 and stars Holland, Zendaya, Jon Bernthal, Sadie Sink, and Mark Ruffalo
• The practical effects push comes as Marvel faces ongoing criticism over its CGI quality

Tom Holland is back in the suit — and this time, he’s doing it the old-fashioned way. Marvel has dropped a new behind-the-scenes featurette for Spider-Man: Brand New Day, and it’s exactly the kind of footage that Marvel fans have been quietly desperate to see: real wires, real stunts, real chaos.

In the clip, Holland doesn’t hold back. “This is some of the best action that we’ve had in any of these movies,” he says. “And we shot the most stunts on the day in camera.” The footage backs him up — we see Spidey getting whipped around on rigging, thrown backwards into a truck, riding what appears to be an army tank through the streets, and cars exploding around him in sequences that look genuinely physical rather than stitched together in post.

Director Destin Daniel Cretton, who took over the franchise after Jon Watts departed, describes what we’re seeing as the film’s opening action sequence — so this is how Brand New Day announces itself right out of the gate. He also noted that hundreds of fans showed up on set to watch the stunts being filmed live, something he said meant a great deal to him and the entire crew.

A Fresh Start for Peter Parker

The practical emphasis makes sense given where the story picks up. Four years after the events of No Way Home, Peter Parker is living entirely alone — no Tony Stark tech, no Iron Spider suit, no one who even remembers who he is. He voluntarily erased himself from the lives of everyone he loves, and now he’s just a full-time Spider-Man in a city that doesn’t know his name. The official description promises that “the pressure sparks a surprising physical evolution that threatens his existence” as he faces one of the most powerful threats he’s ever encountered.

That stripped-down premise — which began with Peter literally sewing his own costume at a sewing machine in a crappy apartment at the end of No Way Home — makes the practical, grounded approach to the action feel like a deliberate creative statement. This isn’t the polished Avengers-era Spider-Man. This is a kid figuring it out.

Marvel also released a new poster alongside the featurette — a close-up of Holland’s face, the bottom half visible below the mask, Spider-Man’s suit filling most of the frame. Simple, striking, and a clean visual promise of what the film is going for.

Why This Matters Right Now

The timing of this featurette is pointed. Marvel’s visual effects have taken a beating from fans and critics for years, with particularly rough shots from Black Widow, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and Thor: Love and Thunder becoming something of a running internet joke. That criticism has only deepened alongside reporting on how Marvel treats its VFX vendors — including recent fan reactions to CGI in The Punisher: One Last Kill that went viral for all the wrong reasons.

Against that backdrop, a featurette that essentially says “we built this for real” isn’t just a marketing beat — it’s a message. The footage of the tank rolling down an Edinburgh street (dressed to look like New York) with Holland on top of it is exactly the kind of image that travels. Fans on set, watching it happen in person, only adds to that.

The film’s cast is stacked: Zendaya returns as MJ, Jacob Batalon is back as Ned, Jon Bernthal reprises Frank Castle/The Punisher (whose One Last Kill special sets up some complicated dynamics heading into this film), Michael Mando is on board as Scorpion, Tramell Tillman plays Department of Damage Control boss Bill Metzger, and Mark Ruffalo appears as Bruce Banner — with strong hints he’ll also show up green.

Then there’s Sadie Sink, whose role remains officially undisclosed — though fans have been obsessively cross-referencing every behind-the-scenes detail, including a yellow jacket she was spotted wearing on set, trying to crack it. So far, Marvel’s keeping that one close.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day swings into theaters on July 31.

The post Spider-Man: Brand New Day Goes Practical With Stunts appeared first on Cream.

• Sony and Marvel released a new behind-the-scenes teaser for Spider-Man: Brand New Day, showing off practical stunt work filmed in London and Edinburgh
• Tom Holland says the film has “the best action we’ve had in any of these movies,” with more on-camera stunts than any previous Marvel production
• Director Destin Daniel Cretton confirms the tank sequence — first seen in set photos — is the movie’s opening action scene
• Early test screening reactions are calling it the best Spider-Man film ever made
• Spider-Man: Brand New Day hits theaters July 31, 2026

Two months out from its July 31 release, Spider-Man: Brand New Day is already making some very big promises — and early signs suggest it might actually keep them.

Sony Pictures and Marvel Studios dropped a new behind-the-scenes featurette this week, titled “Practical Production,” giving fans their best look yet at the real, on-location stunt work that forms the backbone of the MCU’s fourth solo Spider-Man film. Tom Holland and director Destin Daniel Cretton both appear in the clip, talking up what sounds like the most physically ambitious Spidey movie to date.

“This is some of the best action that we’ve had in any of these movies,” Holland says in the video. “We’ve shot the most stunts on the day in camera. Putting Spider-Man on the street with cars exploding. It’s just so awesome. It’s going to allow the audience to be part of the experience.”

That’s a bold statement from a guy who’s already swung through two MCU trilogies and a multiverse event — but watching the footage, it’s hard to argue. The teaser shows real web-swinging through city streets, practical effects, and what looks like full-scale chaos with actual vehicles. No volume stage, no green screen safety net. Just Spidey on the ground, in the mix.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=6GW4JPeqm3s%3Fsi%3DK9YW-0qtTaFwaByF

The Opening Scene That Stopped Traffic in Edinburgh

Cretton, who previously delivered some of Marvel’s most inventive action sequences with Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, revealed that the sequence featured in the teaser — the now-famous tank scene that drew massive crowds when it filmed on location in Edinburgh, Scotland, dressed up as New York — is actually the film’s opening action set piece. He described it as “exhilarating” to shoot, and noted it was the very first thing they filmed for the movie.

“One of the results of that was that we were seeing thousands of people showing up to watch us work,” Cretton said. “It was a really lovely reminder to us how much this movie means to a lot of people in the world.”

Eagle-eyed fans watching the featurette closely will also catch something interesting: at one point, Peter is seen wearing a puffer vest jacket and hat over his suit — a cold-weather disguise that looks remarkably similar to what Andrew Garfield’s Spider-Man wore in The Amazing Spider-Man 2. Whether it’s a deliberate nod or a happy coincidence, it’s the kind of detail that’s going to send corners of the internet into a spiral for the next few weeks.

Also worth noting: new Halloween costume merchandise from Rubies has given fans a surprisingly detailed look at Peter’s new web-shooters for the film. They’re clunky, homemade, and a far cry from the Stark Industries tech he’s used before — which lines up with the movie’s premise of a Peter Parker who is fully on his own, with no Tony Stark safety net. The official plot description confirms that Peter undergoes some kind of unexpected “physical evolution” during the film, and the web-shooters appear to be edited out of several scenes in the existing trailer, suggesting they won’t be around for long before something bigger takes over.

A Fresh Poster and a Story That Starts From Zero

Alongside the featurette, Sony also unveiled a new poster — easily the closest look we’ve gotten at Holland’s suit in the film. It’s a clean, striking design: the bottom half of his face visible beneath the mask, the suit dominating the frame. Simple, but it hits. The accompanying tagline says everything about where this story is headed: “The world has forgotten Peter Parker, but he hasn’t forgotten them.”

Set four years after the events of No Way Home, Brand New Day finds Peter living completely alone, having erased himself from the memories of everyone he loves — including Zendaya’s MJ and Jacob Batalon’s Ned. He’s a full-time Spider-Man now, protecting a city that doesn’t know his name. Holland has spoken about how much that emotional reality drives the story.

“I think what Peter Parker is going through post-Spider-Man: No Way Home is really profound and unique to the superhero genre,” Holland previously said. “The thing I’m most excited about with Brand New Day is I think more so than any of our previous movies, New York is really a key character in the fabric of this movie.”

He’s also described the film as being about “finding their identity and becoming adults” — and for Peter specifically, that means “learning to really find an identity” while dealing with a physical change that threatens his existence and a wave of crime that brings some genuinely dangerous new threats to his doorstep.

A Stacked Cast and Some Very Intriguing Additions

The film brings back Holland, Zendaya, and Batalon, and adds a lineup that reads like a street-level MCU dream team. Michael Mando returns as Scorpion, Marvin Jones III plays Tombstone, and Mark Ruffalo is in as Bruce Banner — with promo art already showing the Hulk alongside Spider-Man, suggesting Banner won’t just be sitting this one out. Tramell Tillman plays Department of Damage Control boss Bill Metzger, setting up what sounds like an institutional antagonist alongside the physical threats.

Jon Bernthal is back as Frank Castle, and the recently released Disney+ short film The Punisher: One Last Kill does important work resetting Frank’s status quo ahead of his appearance here. In that special, Frank wrestles with whether to hang up the skull after completing his revenge mission, ultimately recommitting to being a street-level protector. Bernthal has talked about the challenge of bridging the tonal gap between the two projects. “With Spider-Man, I think what was most important — because, obviously, tonally it’s different and such an honor to be a part of it, especially with my dear friend Tom Holland — it was important to us that one Punisher could walk off one set and walk onto the other,” he said.

And then there’s Sadie Sink, whose role remains officially undisclosed but has become one of the most discussed mysteries in Marvel fandom right now. Many believe she’s playing Jean Grey — a mutant fugitive with telekinetic powers — and there’s a rumor circulating that Bernthal’s Punisher may be acting as her protector in the film, a dynamic that would make a lot of sense given what One Last Kill established about Frank’s instinct to shield people who remind him of his daughter.

The Test Screening Buzz Is Extremely Loud

Cretton confirmed that test screenings have already taken place, and that he was very pleased with how audiences responded. But the reactions going around are something beyond diplomatic studio-speak.

Insider John Campea reported that the responses were “beyond excellent” and better than the studio had hoped for. Scooper MTTSH went further, sharing that people who attended are calling Brand New Day “the greatest Spider-Man movie” yet. Test screening hyperbole is real, and a self-selected audience is not general audiences — but it’s worth pointing out that early test screening reports are often mixed, so uniformly glowing reactions do mean something.

Rumblings are also growing that a full new trailer is imminent, possibly attached to The Mandalorian and Grogu when it opens next weekend. Given that the first Brand New Day trailer broke records for trailer viewership when it dropped in March, the appetite for more footage is clearly not going anywhere.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day is directed by Destin Daniel Cretton and written by Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers. It opens July 31, 2026.

The post Spider-Man: Brand New Day Teaser Promises Best MCU Action Yet appeared first on Cream.

• Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey opens July 17, 2026 — the first film ever shot entirely on IMAX 70mm cameras
• Nolan defended casting Travis Scott as a bard, saying rap is “analogous” to the oral poetry tradition of Homer
• Lupita Nyong’o has been confirmed to play two roles: both Helen of Troy and her sister Clytemnestra
• The film faces a real box office challenge: Tom Holland’s Spider-Man: Brand New Day arrives just two weeks later
• Producer Emma Thomas confirmed the $250M budget reports are overstated, though she called the film “enormous”

Christopher Nolan doesn’t do small. But even by his standards, The Odyssey is something else — a $250 million sword-and-sandals epic shot entirely on IMAX 70mm cameras, starring what might be the most stacked cast ever assembled for a single film, and carrying the weight of one of the oldest stories in human history. And right now, with its July 17 release date closing in fast, Nolan is doing what he always does when the internet comes for him: explaining himself, calmly and thoroughly, and making you feel like you were the one who didn’t think it through.

In a sweeping new profile with Time magazine, Nolan addressed the wave of online criticism that’s been building since the first trailer dropped — complaints about armor that looks more Gotham than ancient Greece, American accents in Bronze Age Ithaca, and perhaps most divisively, the decision to cast Travis Scott in the film. He took all of it on directly, and the answers are more considered than the backlash probably deserves.

Why Travis Scott Is Playing a Bard in Ancient Greece

When Scott appeared in a teaser trailer earlier this year — dressed as a Greek storyteller, silencing a rowdy mess hall to tell Telemachus (Tom Holland) about his father — the internet had opinions. “Nolan does not know what he’s doing anymore,” one person tweeted. “Pretentious” was a word that came up more than once.

Nolan’s reasoning, though, is disarmingly logical. “I cast him because I wanted to nod towards the idea that this story has been handed down as oral poetry,” he told Time, “which is analogous to rap.”

It’s not a random creative leap. The Homeric epics weren’t written down and read — they were performed, recited by traveling poets called bards, passed between generations through rhythm and repetition. Scott, who plays one of those bards, is a living continuation of that tradition in Nolan’s reading. And the two have genuine history: Scott contributed “The Plan” as the closing track for Nolan’s 2020 film Tenet, a collaboration that Nolan told GQ at the time came from Scott’s “immediate, insightful, and profound” understanding of the film’s musical and narrative mechanics. Nolan even sent Scott a handwritten note raving about his “Franchise” music video, writing: “Love the video (shot on film, no less!). I can’t wait to hear it on the IMAX speakers.”

For what it’s worth, Scott had a scene-stealing moment in that January teaser. “A war, a man, a trick — a trick to break the walls of Troy,” he booms, as images of the Trojan War flash across the screen. “It burning, screaming to the ground.” Some fans pushed back on the critics, pointing out that Tyler, the Creator just appeared in Marty Supreme without this level of hand-wringing. Others noted the Tenet connection as evidence of a real creative relationship, not a stunt.

About That “Batman Armor” Problem

The other major flashpoint has been the look of the film’s costumes — specifically the imposing all-black armor worn by Benny Safdie’s Agamemnon, which drew immediate comparisons to the Batsuit. “Had no idea Ancient Greeks used Batman helmets and sailed in Viking ships,” one commenter wrote after the debut trailer. “Nothing says Ancient Greece quite like wearing black and brown,” said another. “A little colour wouldn’t hurt you, Nolan.”

Nolan’s defense here leans on archaeology. “There are Mycenaean daggers that are blackened bronze,” he explained. “The theory is they probably could have blackened bronze in those days. You take bronze, you add more gold and silver to it and then use sulfur.” As for the design choices more broadly, costume designer Ellen Mirojnick was deliberately trying to communicate Agamemnon’s status above everyone else — and expensive, unusual materials are how you do that in a world without designer labels.

He also made a more philosophical point about the nature of adapting ancient history. The oldest depictions of Homeric characters, he noted, “tend to be depicted in the manner of people living in Homer’s time” — roughly 400 to 500 years after the Bronze Age collapse. So there’s a legitimate case, Nolan argues, for presenting the story the way its first audiences received it, rather than chasing archaeological precision for a period we barely understand. “For Interstellar, you’re looking at, ‘What is the best speculation of the future?’ When you’re looking at the ancient past, it’s actually the same thing,” he said. “What is the best speculation, and how can I use that to create a world?”

“Hopefully they’ll enjoy the film, even if they don’t agree with everything,” he added. “We had a lot of scientists complain about Interstellar. But you just don’t want people to think that you took it on frivolously.”

The Gods Won’t Be Showing Up (But You’ll Feel Them)

One of the more surprising creative choices Nolan revealed: he decided against casting actors to play the Olympian gods. No Poseidon. No Zeus. In a story where divine intervention is essentially the engine of the plot, that’s a bold call.

His reasoning gets at something genuinely interesting about what cinema can do. “I became more interested in the idea that, to people in that period, evidence of gods was everywhere,” Nolan said. “The wonderful thing about cinema, and IMAX in particular, is that you can take an audience to a place of immersion, feeling close to events like storms, turbulent seas, high winds. You want the audience to be on the boat with them fearing the ocean, fearing the wrath of Poseidon, the way the characters do. That to me is so much more powerful than any individual image you can have of a god.”

It’s consistent with how Nolan has always worked — grounding the mythic in the felt, the physical, the human. The Dark Knight trilogy explained every gadget. Interstellar built its wormhole from real astrophysics. Even in a story full of monsters and enchantresses, Nolan wants you to believe in the stakes before you believe in the spectacle.

One exception to the no-gods rule: Zendaya, who is playing Athena. Her role in the story — appearing to Telemachus, nudging events toward Odysseus’s return — apparently works differently enough from the other gods to merit the casting. The details of how Nolan handles that are still under wraps.

Lupita Nyong’o Is Playing Two People, and the Cast Stayed in Budget Hotels

The Time profile also confirmed something fans had been speculating about: Lupita Nyong’o is pulling double duty. She plays both Helen of Troy — the most beautiful woman in the world, whose abduction by a Trojan prince triggers the war — and Helen’s sister Clytemnestra, who is married to Agamemnon. It’s a casting choice that draws a direct line between the two women at the center of the Trojan War’s origin, and it gives Nyong’o one of the film’s most complex dramatic assignments.

Meanwhile, the production’s approach to its enormous budget is apparently less glamorous than you’d imagine. Anne Hathaway, who plays Penelope, revealed that the cast — Holland, Robert Pattinson, and everyone else — was housed in budget accommodation on a small island in Sicily. “There’s no indulgent nonsense,” she said. “It’s just about the work, and we’re all so happy to be there.”

On the budget question, producer Emma Thomas — Nolan’s wife and longtime producing partner — pushed back on reports that the film cost $250 million. “It’s not our most expensive movie,” she told Time, “but the film is enormous.” The current belief is that The Dark Knight Rises, which came in between $250 million and $300 million before tax credits, remains Nolan’s most expensive production.

There’s also a quietly delightful behind-the-scenes connection for Interstellar fans: Bill Irwin, who voiced and physically performed TARS — the sarcastic, boxy robot that became one of that film’s most beloved characters — is back. This time, he’s guiding the performance of the Cyclops. Just like he did with TARS, Irwin will be working to make the creature feel tactile and physically real rather than purely digital. It’s exactly the kind of practical-effects-first instinct that defines how Nolan builds his worlds.

The Tom Holland Problem

All of this would be enough to make The Odyssey one of the most talked-about films of the year. But there’s a box office wrinkle that no amount of IMAX spectacle can fully solve, and it has everything to do with one of the film’s own stars.

Tom Holland plays Telemachus — Odysseus’s son, desperately searching for news of his father while suitors overrun his home. It’s a meaty role in a prestige film, and Holland’s presence is a genuine asset for Nolan: he pulls younger audiences, generates buzz outside the cinephile bubble, and helps sell a Homer adaptation to people who haven’t thought about ancient Greece since high school.

The catch is that just two weeks after The Odyssey opens, Holland is back in the MCU for Spider-Man: Brand New Day. And Spider-Man doesn’t need a perfect trailer or unanimous critical praise to dominate the conversation — it just needs to exist. No Way Home finished at $1.921 billion worldwide. Even a less-electric sequel is a commercial force that will immediately absorb the pop culture oxygen The Odyssey needs to sustain momentum past opening weekend.

Nolan’s films depend on staying power. Oppenheimer made $975.8 million — an extraordinary number for a three-hour biopic — but it still didn’t crack $1 billion, and that mark has eluded him since The Dark Knight Rises in 2012. The Odyssey looks like his best shot in over a decade to get there: epic scale, universal source material, the first film ever shot entirely in IMAX 70mm, and a cast that reads like a Hollywood roll call. Advance tickets reportedly sold out extremely fast when they went on sale, and the first trailer was met with genuine excitement.

But the second trailer landed with a slightly more mixed response — some felt the tone skewed too modern, the dialogue too contemporary Hollywood for a story rooted in ancient myth. Not enough to kill the hype, but enough to raise a question about whether Nolan is threading this needle as cleanly as he did with Oppenheimer.

Universal’s Donna Langley, for her part, sounds confident. “It is a global story that has existed for thousands of years,” she told Time. “That, coupled with Christopher Nolan’s name and what that means for cinema, which we know means a lot, and an all-star cast, it makes for a very worthy and solid commercial bet.”

Nolan himself has acknowledged the scale of what he’s attempting. “Anyone taking on The Odyssey is taking on the hopes and dreams of people for epic movies everywhere,” he said, “and that comes with a huge responsibility.”

The Odyssey opens in theaters July 17, 2026.

The post Christopher Nolan Opens Up About The Odyssey’s Biggest Controversies appeared first on Cream.

• The new full-length trailer for Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey dropped and the internet immediately zeroed in on one word: “dad”
• Tom Holland, playing Telemachus, says “My dad is coming home” — and fans can’t decide if it’s a dealbreaker or completely fine
• Robert Pattinson’s line “You’re pining for a daddy you didn’t even know” is also drawing major attention — and major praise for his villain work
• The $250 million film, shot entirely on IMAX cameras, opens July 17, 2026, and is already shaping up to be the movie event of the year
• Nolan has defended his vision of the story as his own interpretation, not a period-accurate recreation

Two thousand years of mythology, a $250 million budget, the greatest living director, and an all-star cast that reads like the Avengers roster — and what has the internet decided to focus on? One three-letter word.

The new full-length trailer for Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey landed this week, and it’s genuinely breathtaking — sweeping IMAX vistas, the Trojan Horse rendered in fire and shadow, a glimpse of the Cyclops lurking in a dark cave, and a cast so stacked it almost feels unfair. But within hours of the trailer dropping, the conversation online had narrowed sharply to a single moment: Tom Holland, playing Odysseus’s son Telemachus, looking dead-serious into the camera and declaring, “My dad is coming home.”

Not “my father.” Not “my king.” Dad.

The line — delivered in a fully American accent, in a film set in 1200 BCE — hit viewers like a record scratch. “First time hearing ‘DAD’ in a historical epic film,” one YouTube commenter wrote. Another called it something “from a sitcom.” On X, one user posted: “‘Dad’? It’s Father. Modern terms have no place in this film” — though the discourse there was considerably more colorful in places, with at least one person admitting the word made them “scream in horror.”

The line doesn’t exist in isolation, either. It comes as a direct response to Robert Pattinson’s character Antinous, who leans into Telemachus and sneers: “You’re pining for a daddy you didn’t even know, like some sniveling bastard.” So there are two daddy references in quick succession, and the internet caught both of them.

One particularly sharp fan on YouTube compared Holland’s delivery to a very different famous son, writing that “‘My dad is coming home’ gave ‘My father will hear about this’ vibes” — a Harry Potter Draco Malfoy reference that somehow made perfect sense.

Robert Pattinson Is Winning the Internet Anyway

Here’s the thing: even the people most bothered by the word “dad” seem to agree that Robert Pattinson is doing something genuinely special with Antinous. His delivery of that line — cold, contemptuous, precise — has become one of the most-discussed moments in the trailer for all the right reasons.

“Say whatever you want, but I think Robert Pattinson is pretty solid casting for Antinous,” wrote @TristanPudde on X, adding that the character’s irritating quality is exactly the point — you’re supposed to hate him. @MovieTimePicks went further: “The way Robert Pattinson can deliver a line that is both a biological fact and a soul-crushing insult is why he’s the best in the business right now.”

Antinous, for those whose Greek mythology is a little rusty, is the most aggressive of the suitors who have descended on Ithaca in Odysseus’s absence, vying for Penelope’s hand — and, by extension, the throne. In the trailer, he tells Penelope flatly, “I want you to choose me,” and when she insists Odysseus is returning, he gives her a slow smile and says, “No, he’s not.” It’s genuinely unsettling. And then he’s seen unsheathing a blade.

Anne Hathaway’s Penelope, meanwhile, is clearly not the passive, weeping wife of some adaptations. She shuts Antinous down cold: “Ithaca’s king is coming back.” The trailer also shows her in tears later, admitting “that world is gone” — which raises some interesting questions about where the story goes.

Everything Else the New Trailer Reveals

Beyond the dialogue debate, there’s a lot to take in. The trailer opens with Charlize Theron as Calypso — the mythological nymph who holds Odysseus captive on her island for seven years — demanding, “Tell me what you remember.” Her scenes with Matt Damon’s Odysseus, who asks her to help him get home, have a haunted, otherworldly quality that feels unlike anything in Nolan’s previous work.

The Trojan Horse makes an appearance, shown in silhouette standing upright on two legs — a unique visual choice — with a soldier rappelling from its belly as troops storm a fortress. It’s a bold image, and a notable one, given that the Trojan Horse barely features in Homer’s original text. Nolan is clearly working from a broader canvas than the poem alone.

The Cyclops Polyphemus is teased in a dark cave sequence, emerging slowly from shadow with its single eye positioned high on the forehead. It’s creepy and effective. There’s also a glimpse of the massive whirlpool caused by the sea monster Charybdis, as Odysseus and his men row desperately against the current.

John Leguizamo appears as the servant Eumaeus — almost unrecognizable — in a scene where Telemachus confides in him about whether his father will ever return. And yes, there is a puppy. There is also, based on the imagery, a dead dog later in the film, which suggests that Odysseus’s loyal hound Argos — one of the most quietly devastating moments in the original poem — will make an appearance.

Zendaya (as Athena), Mia Goth, Lupita Nyong’o, Jon Bernthal, Himesh Patel, Elliot Page, Benny Safdie, and Travis Scott are all in the film but largely absent from this trailer, which means there’s still plenty being held back.

Is the Backlash Missing the Point?

The “dad” controversy sits inside a larger conversation about Nolan’s creative choices: the American accents across the board (including from London-born Holland and Pattinson, who both speak in nonspecific American dialects), the anachronistic-looking armor on some soldiers, and the general decision to treat a 3,000-year-old myth as a living, contemporary story rather than a museum piece.

SlashFilm pointed out that the accents extend beyond individual word choices — at another point in the trailer, Odysseus rallies his troops with a very American “Let’s go!” — and argued that the dialect strips the story of some of its grandeur. Others have noted that the armor on Agamemnon (Benny Safdie) and the giants that Odysseus encounters looks more medieval than Bronze Age.

But the counterargument is hard to dismiss: The Odyssey is a fantasy. It features gods, a one-eyed giant, a sea monster, and a nymph who offers immortality. Demanding period accuracy from a story that was never meant to be historically accurate in the first place is a strange hill to die on. And Nolan himself has been clear that this is his interpretation of the myth, not a reconstruction of it. On The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, he described Homer as “the George Lucas of his time” and the epic as “the Marvel of its day” — direct, mythological storytelling designed to make audiences feel that gods could walk among them.

He’s also confirmed the film will be told in Nolan’s signature non-linear style, which actually mirrors Homer’s original structure — the poem begins in medias res, deep into the journey, and works backward and forward through time. That’s very much Nolan’s territory.

The film was shot across multiple global locations, with four months at sea — a decision that visibly shaped the footage. “It’s vast and terrifying and wonderful and benevolent, as the conditions shift,” Nolan said of filming on open water. “We really wanted to capture how hard those journeys would have been for people. And the leap of faith that was being made in an unmapped, uncharted world.”

It’s also the first narrative feature film ever shot entirely on IMAX cameras — a genuine milestone — with Nolan’s longtime cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema (Interstellar, Oppenheimer) behind the lens and Ludwig Göransson, who won an Oscar for Oppenheimer‘s score, handling the music. The early reaction to the trailer’s soundtrack has been enthusiastic.

Whether “dad” belongs in ancient Ithaca is, ultimately, a question that will be answered on July 17. But if Nolan’s track record means anything — and it really does — there’s probably a reason for it. Or at the very least, it’ll be the most debated three-letter word in cinema this year.

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