‘Odysseus’ TV Series Readied By ‘Stranger Things’ Exec, ‘Halo’ Director & Greek Outfit Tanweer

EXCLUSIVE: Independent European-U.S. TV series Odysseus is being readied in the slipstream of glowing reviews for Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster movie The Odyssey.

Tanweer, the Greek distributor of Nolan’s film, is producing the new and unrelated TV series out of Athens, with Karl Gajdusek, Jordan Dykstra and Sean Finegan of newly launched U.S. production label Tectonic, and U.S.-Armenian outfit USATV.

Gajdusek, showrunner and EP on the first series of Stranger Things, is aboard as showrunner. The pilot was written by Sean Finegan, Scott Windhauser, Noah Lang, and Blake Hoss.

The take 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”.

In Greek mythology, Odysseus is the legendary king of Ithaca and the hero of Homer’s epic poem, The Odyssey. Renowned for his intellectual brilliance and guile, he is most famous for his “homecoming”, which took him ten eventful years after the decade-long Trojan War.

After developing the drama for a few years, the team is aiming to shoot early next year on location in Greece and Armenia and is hoping it can spawn an “expanded series universe”.

Directing is Roel Reiné, who has previously worked on historical dramas including Washington and Black Sails, as well as Paramount+’s Halo and Wu Assassins for Netflix.

Executive producers are Vaagn Sarkissian of USATV, Jordan Dykstra, Denisa Juhos, along with Gajdusek, Finegan, Windhauser, Lang, Hoss, Reine, and Dionyssis Samiotis for Tanweer Productions.

“There’s something huge about taking on this epic story in the most grounded and realpolitik way we can,” Gajdusek said in a statement. “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.”

“We started this journey almost a half a decade ago with a vision for bringing this story into the current zeitgeist and in a recurring fashion,” said Dykstra. “Our desire is to bring to audiences an authentic and thrilling portrayal of ancient Hellenic Greece.”

Gajdusek is represented by Verve and 360. Finegan is represented by Verve, Anonymous, and attorney Larry Kopeikin. Noah Lang and Hoss are represented by Persistent. Windhauser is represented by Zero Gravity.