Grok releases the first seven minutes of its AI version of the Odyssey — three months after promising a feature film

Seven minutes instead of a feature film

Three months after Elon Musk announced that Grok would release a full-length, 'historically accurate' screen adaptation of the Odyssey, the company has published just seven minutes — the so-called 'Episode 1' of a series created with Grok Imagine. The release took place on October 23, 2026 on the Grok Imagine account on X, where the creators also offered subscribers a full breakdown in the comments of how the video was made. The project was created in creative collaboration with the studio Wonder Studios and director Dev Walker.

Conflict with the Nolan version

Musk previously criticized Christopher Nolan's version of the Odyssey because the director cast Black and transgender actors. Nolan, for his part, calls himself a 'technoskeptic' and has said that before AI he had never seen a technology 'so completely rejected by the public'. His film, shot mostly with practical methods, with filming in six countries and a crew of thousands, after its release in July became an outstanding box-office success: Imax screenings sold out months in advance, and the film itself is considered the likely favorite for the next Academy Awards.

Assessment of the material

According to a TechCrunch reviewer, the video turned out 'not as ugly as expected' and impressively better than other recent videos published by Musk: in some moments the frames could be mistaken for footage of real actors on a real sea. At the same time, the reviewer notes that all the characters are rendered in a 'Musk-approved' skin tone, and the voice-over narrator speaks with a British accent typical of fantasy games and Hollywood epics of the past 25 years. The main weakness of the material, he says, is the lack of artistry and human interest: drawn-out voice-over exposition gives way to a parade of bearded faces delivering unnatural lines, and watching the seven minutes is tiring — unlike Nolan's nearly three-hour film.

Why it matters

The standoff between the two Odysseys has become a vivid test of whether AI content can compete with traditional big-screen cinema: Nolan's film proved the commercial and, according to Vulture's forecasts, awards potential of classic production, whereas Grok has so far presented only seven minutes of material instead of the promised feature film. For audiences, the practical takeaway is simple: both products can already be compared now, while the fate of the full AI film — the timing and format of the remaining episodes — has not been reported by any sources.