The independent European-U.S. TV series Odysseus "is being readied in the slipstream of glowing reviews for Christopher Nolan's blockbuster movie The Odyssey," Deadline reported. Tanweer, the Greek distributor of Nolan's film, is producing the project series in Athens, with Karl Gajdusek, Jordan Dykstra, and Sean Finegan of U.S. production label Tectonic, and U.S.-Armenian company USATV.
Gajdusek is the showrunner, and Roel Reiné (Washington, Black Sails) will direct. The pilot was written by Finegan, Scott Windhauser, Noah Lang, and Blake Hoss. The goal is to shoot early next year on location in Greece and Armenia, with the hope that it will lead to an "expanded series universe."
Odysseus is described to us as "visceral, and muscular--the real Bronze Age world of blood, ships, betrayal, and characters trying to survive the era that inspired Homer's epic. The emphasis on real history lets the story collide with the wider convulsions of the age leading up to the Bronze Age collapse breaking the known world apart into legend," Deadline noted.
"There's something huge about taking on this epic story in the most grounded and realpolitik way we can," Gajdusek said. "The mythical stations of Odysseus's journey are beautifully rendered by Homer as metaphorical journeys into self, but there's also a real under all that. Choices. Lives and loves lost and saved. And for us to set out to tell that real, necessarily sweeping away all adornment, is thrilling. We get to take the audience backstage, meet the Bronze Age flesh and blood characters that birthed the spectacle, and live with their true story."