Nolan's new Odyssey trailer hit by dislike ratio: 1M thumbs down

Nolan's new Odyssey trailer sparks a storm: nearly a million dislikes against just 70,000 likes

The first teaser for Christopher Nolan's eagerly awaited adaptation of Homer's epic has become a digital battleground. Within hours of landing on YouTube, the video has racked up nearly a million dislikes against barely 70,000 likes, a ratio of 14 to 1 that reflects a virulent backlash.

The trigger? Two casting decisions that have inflamed the debate over racial and gender representation in historically set cinema: a Black actress playing Helen of Troy and a trans actor in the role of Achilles. Nolan himself lit the fuse by including a close-up of both characters at the 2:10 mark in the teaser.

The conversation has escalated to the Oscar eligibility criteria. Since 2024, the Academy has required Best Picture contenders to meet at least two of four representation and inclusion standards, covering everything from on-screen casting to the technical crew. To critics, this is proof the studio is ticking boxes to comply. To defenders, it is the natural evolution of an industry seeking to reflect real diversity.

The historical plausibility argument has also made an appearance. The case of The Promised Land (Bastarden) has been recalled, whose director replied at the 2023 Venice Film Festival that his Nordic cast was faithful to rural 18th-century Denmark. Classical Greece, by contrast, was a melting pot of peoples and cultures, which undermines any claim of absolute racial purity.

Either way, the numbers don't lie: the trailer is on track to become the most disliked of the year, and the controversy threatens to overshadow the release scheduled for 2025.