Christopher Nolan, Matt Damon and Tom Holland are coming to Mumbai for The Odyssey's India premiere in July

Dubai: Christopher Nolan is coming to India, and he is bringing some serious star power with him.

Universal Pictures International announced that Mumbai has been selected as one of four cities, alongside London, Paris and New York, to host a premiere for The Odyssey, Nolan's ambitious mythological epic releasing worldwide on July 17. It will mark the first time a Christopher Nolan film has ever premiered in India.

Nolan will travel to Mumbai in July alongside producer Emma Thomas and stars Matt Damon and Tom Holland. The premiere will be held at PVR Icon IMAX at Phoenix Palladium Mall, though an exact date has not yet been announced.

"The visit marks a landmark moment for both the film and the Indian entertainment industry, bringing together one of cinema's most celebrated filmmakers and an acclaimed cast for a historic premiere event in the country," read the official announcement.

Not their first time in India

While this will be Nolan's first Indian premiere, it is far from his first visit to the country. He came to Mumbai in 2018 as part of the Reframing the Future of Film campaign, focused on preserving celluloid film, a cause he remains passionate about. During that trip he met Amitabh Bachchan, Kamal Haasan and Shah Rukh Khan to discuss film preservation. Nolan has also shot on location in India before, filming portions of The Dark Knight Rises with Christian Bale at Mehrangarh Fort in Jodhpur, and returning in 2019 to shoot key sequences of Tenet in Mumbai, a film that also featured Indian actors Dimple Kapadia and Denzil Smith.

Matt Damon, who plays Odysseus in The Odyssey, has his own history with the country. He first visited India in 2004 to film parts of The Bourne Supremacy in Goa, and has returned several times since for humanitarian work through his organisation Water.org.

Tom Holland, who plays Odysseus's son Telemachus, last visited India for the grand launch of the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre in early 2023, walking the red carpet alongside his now-wife and Spider-Man co-star Zendaya.

About The Odyssey

An adaptation of Homer's ancient Greek epic, The Odyssey follows Odysseus, King of Ithaca, on his perilous decade-long journey home after the fall of Troy. The film stars Matt Damon in the lead role alongside Anne Hathaway as his wife Penelope, Tom Holland as his son Telemachus, and an ensemble that includes Robert Pattinson, Lupita Nyong'o, Samantha Morton, Zendaya and Charlize Theron. Nolan wrote and directed the film, producing it with Emma Thomas under their banner Syncopy.

The Odyssey is the first feature film in history to be shot entirely using IMAX cameras, and true to Nolan's reputation, the production relied heavily on practical effects and real locations rather than CGI. Speaking about the experience, Matt Damon did not hold back. "It was by far the hardest movie I've ever made. Chris likes to shoot everything real. So there's no kind of green screen, no faking it, no kind of studio stuff," he said at the California Adopt-A-Pet Day event earlier this month.

Advance tickets for The Odyssey in IMAX are already on sale across Indian cinemas, with tickets priced at Rs 3,300 reportedly selling out a month ahead of release.