Much like Odysseus’ mission to return home after the Trojan War, Elon Musk has been on a personal quest of his own — one marked by plenty of controversy. And the Razzie Awards are putting him on notice.
The trillionaire owner of X took issue with Christopher Nolan‘s version of The Odyssey for the so-called “woke” casting of Lupita Nyong’o as Helen of Troy and Elliot Page as a Greek soldier. Musk, who was born in South Africa, believes Nolan should not have cast Black or trans people considering the film is set in ancient Greece. Much to his chagrin, the film became a box-office hit with $286 million domestic and $353 million international (and counting). That prompted Musk to announce he was going to create his own “historically accurate” movie version of Homer’s epic poem using Grok Imagine, his company’s AI generator.
“Elon would be adding quite a bit of fodder for our awards season,” Maureen “Mo” Murphy, co-founder of the Razzie Awards, tells Gold Derby exclusively. “The intent behind the storytelling as much as the story itself (no matter the tool telling it) is what catches our attention. And this certainly does. Elon’s South African roots are very apparent.”
Artificial intelligence has been a hot-button topic around Hollywood in recent years. Some filmmakers, including Guillermo del Toro, encourage the film industry to “f–k AI,” full stop, while others, like Martin Scorsese, are willing to dabble in the technology.
As the Oscars and other awards bodies continue to distance themselves from generative AI in order to embrace fully human-made projects, Murphy suggested that the Razzies, which infamously honor the “worst” of the year, don’t need to follow the same rules.
“AI in filmmaking is a new tool — not unlike CGI or computer animation when those technologies first came into use. AI is not going away,” she said. However, when projects like Musk’s fully AI Odyssey are “used to cheat creative filmmakers out of work — or the storytelling is unoriginal, boring, or indefensible — that is worthy of our consideration.”
Musk promises that his AI version will be released in 2026, making it eligible for the 2027 Razzies. “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,” he wrote on X on July 21. As of this writing, his post has nearly 12 million views — but only 177K likes.
While Musk’s Odyssey is garnering Razzies buzz, Nolan’s adaptation is an early Oscar front-runner for nominations in many categories, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Matt Damon), Best Supporting Actress (Anne Hathaway, Samantha Morton, and Zendaya), Best Supporting Actor (Robert Pattinson, John Leguizamo, and Tom Holland), and Best Adapted Screenplay.
