AI-Generated ‘Odyssey’ Movie Adaptation Coming From ‘Dreams of Violets’ Director

There’s Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” out on Friday. There’s the AI-generated Michael Caine-narrated audiobook of Homer’s “The Odyssey,” released last month. Now, a third title based on the Greek epic has emerged: an AI-generated version of “The Odyssey.”

The latest Homer adaptation, “Odysseus: The Fall,” is a 135-minute AI-generated movie from AI film studio Fountain 0 and Ash Koosha, the director of the AI-generated docu-drama “Dreams of Violets” about the recent Iranian protests that premiered last month at the Tribeca Festival. Koosha worked on the project as he finalized “Dreams of Violets,” spending three months on a film focused squarely on the Greek hero whom Koosha idolized as a child. “Odysseus: The Fall” will be available to rent or buy from Fountain 0’s website later this summer.

“I’ve been just obsessed with it since I was a kid,” Koosha said in an interview. “One of the things that really drove me towards this story was the character of Odysseus himself, and my take on it — the feeling that I’ve had over the years reading different takes on it, and different translations — and my take was something that I just wanted to tell. And recently, when we did the first film, I realized this is the best time given the public discourse that exists out there as well.”

Fountain 0’s announcement of Koosh’s “Odysseus” movie is clearly timed to draft off the attention surrounding Nolan’s nearly three-hour epic, though the two films aren’t affiliated. The company views Koosha’s film as a prime example of AI filmmaking’s potential, allowing aspiring filmmakers to respond in relative real-time to major cultural or societal moments with relatively inexpensive films.

“We tried with ‘Dreams’ to very much show that an AI-generated film was able to create something … at the speed of news,” said Tom Rogers, Fountain 0’s executive chairman and an executive producer on “Odysseus.” “To be able to produce something at speed that allows you to contribute to it — in this case, Ash’s personal view of Homer and his personal desire to be able to do something on a piece of literature that he has felt very, very close to for a long time — gives us, gives everybody a sense that you can participate in creating film with speed in a way that it really contributes to it.”

The project was created using the AI video generator Kling, with the “script” in the form of notes. Such a loose nature allowed Koosha the opportunity to tinker with the film throughout the production process as he tried to inch closer to realizing his unconstrained vision. “We’re in post production right now,” he said. “Still, the script is open to interpretation. Why? Because the risks don’t exist.”

The film differs from “Dreams” in several elements: it had a higher budget, which Koosha said hovered around the “mid-five figures”; scale, with the “Odyssey” film’s appearance mirroring the likes of typical summer blockbusters; and the use of 12 human likenesses, sourced from Koosha’s networks, with Koosha’s likeness as the model for Odysseus.

The 12 people included a mix of one professional actress, some models, those with no relationship to the entertainment industry and also Rogers himself. The licenses are limited to “Odysseus,” though the people could opt in to have their likeness entered into a catalog that directors could scan to cast the “actors” for their next project. The group of stand-ins earns their money from backend grosses on whatever “Odysseus” makes from its release.

Directing AI-generated likenesses, Koosha said, worked best when he personally knew the person who provided the model for the scene, though both he and Rogers believe directing an actor’s likeness makes it easier to achieve the desired effect from a character within a scene than if Koosha tried to direct an actual human.

“In the case of somebody like me, with zero acting experience, it’s infinitely easier for Ash to direct me through my image and a model than it would be to direct me live in any kind of context where, not having any acting experience, I’d be pretty hard to direct,” Rogers said. “With an experienced actor, that might look very different, but here’s a way to incorporate image in a way that image can be used without the difficulties of directing when somebody is not able to really perform at the level that you’d want in a major movie.”

Still, despite the work going into this project, Rogers was blunt: “I don’t think anybody is going to think this film is better than Nolan’s film,” he said.

Instead, the goal is to let “Odysseus” become a “reference point” to showcase how AI can create anything from arthouse dramas akin to “Dreams of Violets” to the next hero epic, whether of the Greek or anti or super variety.

“There will be a lot of people who either are not interested in the Odyssey, or they don’t like going to the movie theaters, but have a real interest in AI and what’s going on,” Rogers said. “And we actually think, when our film is released, that it will be a catalyst for a lot of people who might not otherwise have seen the Odyssey to hopefully go see it, so they can compare the state of the highest state of human filmmaking achievement, which I truly expect the reviews to suggest Nolan’s film is, with what the top state of the art is in AI filmmaking today.”

But even as a simple “reference point,” Koosha hopes the film reflects how AI is now just another way in which films are made, one he thinks people will inevitably accept.

“I don’t think it’s a question of putting traditional film versus AI film,” he said. “They are not different together because there is a lot of economic outcry, political division, and people assign things to what they don’t like or what they like, and a lot of people don’t understand AI. So when we move past the point where AI is surrounded with so much discourse, and when we ignore the fact that AI is this sort of alien thing, that whether we should use it or not, then it becomes about the stories.”