Elon Musk said he plans to create his own version of “The Odyssey” using artificial intelligence amid his ongoing criticism of the summer blockbuster adaptation of the Greek classic.
The SpaceX and Tesla CEO shared the pledge on X late Tuesday, reposting AI-generated footage of an “Odyssey” scene and promising a historically accurate, full-length film entirely generated by Grok Imagine that stays true to Homer’s epic poem.
“Before this year ends, Grok Imagine will make a full-length movie of ‘The Odyssey’ that is historically accurate and true to the art of Homer,” Musk wrote.
The roughly 3-minute video Musk shared featured a dialogue-heavy scene between two “Odyssey” characters, Calypso and Odysseus, which was rendered on Grok Imagine, the AI image and video generator by SpaceXAI that allows users to create and edit still images and then animate those images into videos.
Musk also suggested he was open to a fan suggestion to fund a separate live-action project with Mel Gibson directing, featuring painstakingly accurate ships, armor, weapons, casting, and dialogue delivered in Homeric Greek.
“I’m down,” Musk replied on X Wednesday.
Musk’s announcement comes amid his ongoing criticism of Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of “The Odyssey,” which made its debut in U.S. theaters on July 17.
Despite criticism from Musk and others about so-called “woke” casting and other production choices, Nolan’s “The Odyssey” — starring Matt Damon as Odysseus, along with Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Robert Pattinson, Samantha Morton and Zendaya — earned over $300 million worldwide in its first week, outpacing Nolan’s 2008 “The Dark Knight.”
Nolan, whose films have grossed more than $6 billion worldwide, acknowledged during a recent interview with “Today” that he was “a little bit nervous” ahead of the film’s release, saying, “We make films for the theatrical audience, and it’s the audience who tells us what it is.”
In the days leading up to the epic hitting theaters, Musk criticized historian Tom Holland — who shares a name with the actor playing Telemachus in Nolan’s film — in a social media post after the historian praised the movie. Holland responded by doubling down, calling the film “amazing” and warning that dismissing it over perceived “woke” elements would be self-defeating.
In May, Musk backed conservative critics, including Matt Walsh, upset over Nolan’s choice to cast Lupita Nyong’o as both Helen of Troy and Clytemnestra. In response to Walsh’s May 12 comment that Nolan was a “coward” who knew he “would be called racist if he gave ‘the most beautiful woman’ role to a white woman,” Musk replied, “True.”
Nyong’o prompted a separate wave of responses on X after a recent interview in which she said, “When you read the Iliad and the Odyssey, very little time is spent in the perspective of the women. It’s all from a very masculine side of things. But this film takes time to really consider things from the female perspective.”
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