Christopher Nolan brought The Odyssey to Mumbai this weekend, and the city turned it into a proper Bollywood meets Hollywood moment, with Matt Damon, Tom Holland and actress Shruti Haasan all pulled into the frame.
The screenings ran across two days, July 10 and 11, at PVR Icon IMAX in Phoenix Palladium, making this the first time an official Nolan premiere has ever touched Indian soil. Nolan landed with his producing partner and wife Emma Thomas, and once the fan screening wrapped, he walked up to the mic and asked the crowd,point blank, if they liked the film.They didn't hold back. Damon took his turn next and told the audience this was the first time they'd faced a real crowd, not just family and friends at an earlier screening, and Holland, grinning through it, said no country brings the kind of energy Indian audiences do inside a movie theatre. Shruti Haasan was spotted around the event too, adding a dash of Bollywood glamour to a night already stacked with Hollywood names.Didn't expect an actress from the South film industry to turn up here, but that's Mumbai for you, everyone finds a way in.
Universal Pictures picked Mumbai as one of only four cities worldwide for this premiere run, alongside London, Paris and New York, which says something about how much the Indian box office matters now. The film itself stars Damon as Odysseus and Holland as his son Telemachus, with Anne Hathaway, Zendaya, Robert Pattinson, Charlize Theron and Lupita Nyong'o rounding out the cast. Shot entirely on IMAX cameras across six countries, Damon has called it the hardest film of his career, no green screens, real ships, real crowds. The Odyssey hits Indian theatres on July 17.
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