Tom Holland will have quite the epic summer this year. He’s returning as Peter Parker in Spider-Man: Brand New Day and will also star in Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey. While it seems those two things have no connective tissue, Nolan rightfully pointed out that one would not exist without the other. During an interview with Stephen Colbert, the famed director talked about Holland’s talent and made connections between Homer’s epic, which is one of the earliest and enduring stories, and comic book heroes. Basically, Christopher Nolan said that Homer and epic stories like The Odyssey were the Marvel Cinematic Universe of its time.
“Even comic book culture, whether you’re talking about Marvel or D.C. or all the rest, a lot of it comes directly from the Homeric Epics,” Nolan said. “The thing about Homer is, nobody knows if that was a person. Homer, in a way, is the sort of George Lucas of his time.”
Stories about gods and incredible heroes who take on insurmountable odds have resonated with humanity since the beginning of time. It not only speaks to our collective imagination about what a world would be like with beasts and immortals as well as realms and lands that mirror our own to a certain degree but also to core aspects of humanity.
We love stories about what it means to find your purpose, to have family (whether blood or found), and to triumph in the face of uncertainty. That’s what The Odyssey is ultimately about and what we also see with our MCU heroes like Spider-Man who are trying to operate in their calling to protect “good” people from “evil” forces. After all, there are literally characters in the MCU named Thor and Loki after Greek mythology figures.
“The thing about Homer, it is the Marvel of its day,” Nolan expressed. “It’s very directly this desire for us to feel or believe gods could walk amongst us, and I think the modern comic book is kind of our expression of that.”
We are excited to see The Odyssey and Spider-Man: Brand New Day come to theaters this July.