Nolan’s Odyssey boosts sales of mythology tales in UK

LONDON – Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of The Odyssey has not only lured legions of fans to cinemas, but also sparked huge interest in Britain in Homer’s epic poem and other Greek and Roman mythology works.

Some involved in Classics academia hope the blockbuster’s box-office success and wider cultural impact will also prompt more young people to study the subject.

The movie’s mid-July release has helped increase British print edition sales of The Odyssey by 1,400 per cent in the four weeks to July 25 compared with the same period in 2025, according to market researchers NielsenIQ.

A 2017 translation by British-American classicist Emily Wilson of the millennia-old mythological tale has been flying off the shelves at a similarly increased rate.

Britain’s biggest bookstore chain, Waterstones, saw sales of Wilson’s work rise more than 1,000 per cent compared with 2025 and they were “increasing every week” alongside purchases of “all other available translations”, a spokeswoman said.

Meanwhile, NielsenIQ noted that many related works – including The Iliad, Madeline Miller’s Circe and Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad – had also seen “significant” sales uplifts.

English actor-writer Stephen Fry’s Odyssey currently tops the history bestsellers on Amazon’s UK website.

Two of his other Classics books – Mythos and Troy – occupy the second and fifth spots, respectively, on the online giant’s list.

Audiobooks are also sharing in the boom, with Spotify reporting that searches for The Odyssey translations have skyrocketed by 310 per cent.

“People are drawn to these stories,” said University of Exeter Classics lecturer Richard Kendall, hailing the sales spike as “fantastic”.

“And that’s not just writers who continually return to the Greeks and Romans – the history, the myths, the characters, the events – that’s also readers. These are ripping good yarns.”

Kendall, the first expert-in-residence earlier in 2026 at Britain’s The Classical Association, cautioned against viewing the renewed literary interest just in cinema-related isolation.

“If this is a gimmick, it’s been a gimmick that’s been lasting for over 2,000 years at this point,” he said.

“It’s wonderful that this has created so much popularity. People are reading more, but this is just this iteration... People will always return to these stories.”

Nonetheless, at University College London – where British-American director Nolan reportedly studied Homer as an English undergraduate – there are hopes for an increase in enrolment.

“The buzz around the film has been tremendous and we’re hoping to see a bounce in student numbers in the next few years,” said Phiroze Vasunia, head of the university’s Greek and Latin Department.

He noted there had been an exceptional level of interest in Classics and in ancient studies in recent years, coinciding with the growing fanfare around Nolan’s movie.

Based on Homer’s poem written originally in Greek around the 7th or 8th century BC, the film tracks hero Odysseus as he faces obstacle after obstacle on his trek home from the Trojan War.

It stars American actors Matt Damon and Anne Hathaway, playing Odysseus and his wife Penelope, respectively, with British actor Tom Holland portraying their son Telemachus.

Nolan’s first movie since 2023 Oscar-winner Oppenheimer has wowed audiences and critics, topping the North American box office for two straight weeks and already taking more than US$911 million (S$1.16 billion) worldwide.

But not everyone has been won over by the modern adaptation of one of humanity’s oldest stories.

High-profile British historian Mary Beard was unconvinced, though she welcomed the interest in Homer.

Writing in The Times, Beard bemoaned that the poem’s “erotic puzzles, the teasing ironies, the intriguing questions about truth and falsehood” had been replaced with “a rather ponderous Hollywood message about civilisational decline”. AFP