Tom Holland is in full countdown mode. His upcoming film The Odyssey opens in theaters on July 17, and on Thursday he nudged his Instagram followers to go grab their tickets.
The message was short and straight to the point. Holland’s caption on Instagram read, “In 2 weeks, experience The Odyssey in theaters on July 17. Get tickets now!” The post crossed 656,000 likes within hours. For a single promotional update, that kind of response shows real audience interest.
For Holland, The Odyssey feels like a genuine turning point. He spent much of the last decade playing Peter Parker in Marvel’s Spider-Man films. That role made him a global star before he’d even turned 21. Now he’s 30 and stepping into a world very different from the MCU. A prestige adaptation of one of the oldest stories in Western literature is a different kind of challenge entirely.
The film is directed by Christopher Nolan, the filmmaker behind Interstellar, Dunkirk, and Oppenheimer. Nolan built his reputation on large-scale, visually ambitious work that takes its audience seriously. The Odyssey suits that approach well. With Nolan behind the camera and Holland in the lead role, this is shaping up to be one of the summer’s most anticipated releases.
Homer’s original epic has held up for thousands of years for good reason. The Odyssey follows Odysseus and his long, grueling journey home after the Trojan War. He faces mythological creatures, divine interference, and loyalty tests at every turn. It’s a story about resilience and the pull of home. Those themes land in any era. Translating it for a modern summer audience is a genuine challenge. Nolan has pulled off harder things, though.
Holland has been steadily expanding his range over the past several years. He starred in Cherry in 2021, a raw drama directed by Anthony and Joe Russo. He then led The Crowded Room for Apple TV+, a psychological limited series. It pushed him into darker, more complicated territory and earned him some of the best critical notices of his career. The Odyssey looks like the next step in that progression, and possibly his most defining role outside the MCU.
Off-screen, Holland stays in the news pretty regularly. His long-running relationship with actress Zendaya remains one of the most followed celebrity pairings in Hollywood. Both carry massive social media audiences. Anything either of them posts tends to travel fast. Thursday’s ticket push was no exception.
With two weeks to go, the promotional push is clearly ramping up. The Odyssey opens July 17. Tickets are on sale now.