Christopher Nolan Told Universal It Was ‘R’ Rated or No Deal for ‘The Odyssey’: “We Wanted to Make the Most Intense Version”

I don’t know if Nolan would have been able to convince Universal to greenlight a $250 million, “R”-rated “Odyssey” without the success of “Oppenheimer,” which was far cheaper to make and ended up grossing nearly $1 billion worldwide.

In an interview with Empire Magazine, Nolan said he wanted to embrace the brutality and sensuality of Homer’s text without compromise. In fact, at the very beginning, he gave Universal an ultimatum: “R” rated or bust.

I went to studio at the very beginning and had a very honest conversation with them that we wanted to make the most intense version of The Odyssey.

Nolan wanted “The Odyssey” to “feel visceral and modern,” and, given the brutality of the era it depicts, there would be no compromise.

With the weapons of the time, they are more brutal— you’re talking about swords and bows and arrows and things like that. So I concluded pretty early that it would be pretty difficult and potentially compromising to make a PG-13 version of this story.

The source material includes gory battles, nudity, mutilation, and revenge killings. Throughout the story, Odysseus has sex with three different women, including Calypso, the goddess. Hell, at one point, the Cyclops captures Odysseus’ men and brutally kills and eats several of them.

I always hope for Nolan to make R-rated cinema rather than safer PG-13 fare. It gives him more creative freedom, and with “The Odyssey,” a tale filled with brutal violence and sex, he needed that wiggle room. That rating was necessary.

That “R” rating for Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” comes only three years after “Oppenheimer” became Nolan’s first R-rated movie in over 20 years; the last time was with 2002’s “Insomnia.” Before that, “Memento” also received the same rating. “The Odyssey” is only the fourth film in Nolan’s career to receive an R rating.

“The Odyssey” comes out on July 17. The social media embargo lifts on July 6, and the review embargo lifts on July 15.