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Media interviews for Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” have been underway for a few days, including ones with the man himself discussing some of his creative choices for the film.
One choice is the film’s R rating, his fourth to date and one fitting with the original material, but still a risk for a big-budget studio blockbuster. He got an R rating for “Oppenheimer,” but that was also a lot cheaper to make than this.
In an interview with Empire, Nolan said he told Universal from the start the film had to be R-rated in order to fit the brutality and sexuality of the original text:
“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. 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 rating is fitting with a story that features not just brutal battles and murders, but men being eaten, dark adult themes, and a complicated sexual element for Odysseus.
Though devoted to a wife who remains chaste for two decades awaiting his return, he engages in sex repeatedly with a sorceress and a goddess – in the latter case for several years. How the film will handle the nature of those relationships, one transactional and the other subjecting the hero to effective sexual slavery, should be an interesting talking point and one that could differ this film from past adaptations.
“The Odyssey” will open in cinemas on July 17th.
The post Nolan Made Sure “The Odyssey” Was An R appeared first on Dark Horizons.
