And so Elon Musk‘s anti-Odyssey campaign continues: The X owner and recently anointed trillionaire has vowed that his AI social media bot, Grok, will make “a full-length movie of The Odyssey that is historically accurate and true to the art of Homer” before the end of the year.
His post on Wednesday was accompanied by a three-minute AI-generated short that a follower had made using Grok Imagine.
It comes as the South African businessman continues to rile up his supporters in a real culture war over Christopher Nolan‘s box office behemoth. His commentary on the film dates to January, when rumors of Lupita Nyong’o’s casting as Helen of Troy first began circulating. He has criticized Nolan and Hollywood for their “woke” agenda, despite wide acknowledgment from actual historians that Homer’s work is, of course, a piece of fiction.
In May, Musk agreed with a racist comment made by a far-right journalist who took aim at the Oscar-winning actress’ involvement: “We’re told that we shouldn’t object to Helen of Troy being portrayed as a black woman,” said Daily Wire‘s Matt Walsh. “And yet if a major Hollywood studio made a film set in Africa and cast a white woman as ‘the most beautiful woman in Africa,’ those same people would literally riot in the street. If, say, Sydney Sweeney was cast in the role, they’d be driven to murderous violence. We all know this is the case.”
Musk chimed in via the comment section of Walsh’s post: “Absolutely true. Such hypocrisy in Hollywood.”
It isn’t the only cast announcement that the Tesla and SpaceX founder has taken issue with. When rumors surfaced that trans actor Elliot Page might be cast as Achilles, he reacted even more forcefully, saying: “One of the dumbest and most twisted things I’ve ever heard.” (Musk, who has a trans daughter from his first marriage, Vivian Jenna Wilson, has historically made transphobic attacks against his own daughter. She has cut ties with him.) It’s also worth noting that Page does not play Achilles in Nolan’s film —he portrays Sinon, a Greek soldier incorporated into the story from Virgil’s epic poem The Aeneid.
So, it isn’t entirely surprising Musk would attempt to make his own Odyssey with what will be —judging from the short snippet he reposted on Wednesday —an all-white cast. Grok Imagine’s retelling of Homer’s epic will likely only make Nolan’s feat look even more of a masterpiece, especially since it was shot entirely on Imax film and used extremely little CGI.
Nolan himself has called the backlash over historical accuracy “irrelevant.” He said: “Comes with the territory … These conversations that happen before people see the film — they’re always irrelevant, because no one having them knows what the film actually is yet.”
And for all of the outrage Musk has drummed up around The Odyssey, the film has not notably suffered at the box office at all. The retelling of classical Greek mythology got the box officeback on track over the weekend, scoring $124.5 million on 3,900 North American screens.
Earning an A CinemaScore from audiences, the film sailed away to 2026’s biggest live-action opening, with onlyToy Story 5($159 million) andThe Super Mario Galaxy Movie($131 million) debuting above it.The Odysseyalso claimed the top R-rated opening of the year and Universal’s highest weekend launch ever for an R-rated movie.
Globally,The Odysseycollected $264.1 million, adding $139.6 million from 73 international markets. The film marks Nolan’s biggest worldwide opening of all time, toppingThe Dark Knight Rises’$249 million global launch in 2012.