Tom Cruise is giving Christopher Nolan‘s The Odyssey his stamp of approval.
Cruise took to social media on Thursday after attending an early screening of Nolan’s Greek epic, thanking the filmmaker, his wife and producing partner Emma Thomas, and the film’s cast and crew.
“Wow! To Chris, Emma, and ALL of your brilliant cast and crew. Thank you for an amazing night in a movie theater. I can’t wait to see it again!” he captioned a photo of himself holding a movie ticket in front of the film’s Imax 70mm theater. (See the post below.)
The Odyssey, which officially opens in theaters Friday, is an adaptation of Homer’s epic following Matt Damon as the Greek king Odysseus on his long journey home to Ithaca after the Trojan War, where he hopes to reunite with his wife, Penelope (Anne Hathaway) and son, Telemachus (Tom Holland). Zendaya, Robert Pattinson, Lupita Nyong’o, Jon Bernthal, Elliot Page, Travis Scott, Charlize Theron and more round out the star-studded cast. At the time of publication, the film holds a 96 percent critics score on Rotten Tomatoes.
While Cruise and Nolan have never collaborated, the two are widely recognized as champions of the theatrical moviegoing experience. The Odyssey also made history as the first feature film shot entirely with Imax 70mm film cameras, making it a uniquely immersive theatrical experience.
Cruise has long advocated for seeing movies on the big screen. He famously delayed the release of Top Gun: Maverick throughout the COVID-19 pandemic so audiences could experience it in theaters rather than on streaming. The 2022 sequel went on to gross nearly $1.5 billion worldwide, prompting Steven Spielberg to tell Cruise in 2023, “You saved Hollywood’s ass, and you might have saved theatrical distribution. Seriously, Maverick might have saved the entire theatrical industry.”
The Mission: Impossible star has also been known to champion other filmmakers’ work, publicly promoting films including Nolan’s Tenet and Oppenheimer, as well as Sinners, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, Twisters, F1: The Movie, The Running Man and Disclosure Day, among others.
Cruise, meanwhile, is gearing up for the release of his next film, Digger. The first trailer debuted earlier this week, revealing an unrecognizable look at the actor beneath heavy prosthetic makeup. Directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu, the Warner Bros. release opens in theaters Oct. 2.
