Elon Musk Aims For 'Historically Accurate' AI-Generated Odyssey Movie By End Of 2026

Elon Musk has announced that xAI's Grok Imagine will produce a full-length movie adaptation of Homer's Odyssey before the end of 2026, promising a version that stays historically accurate and true to Homer's original text. The announcement came in response to a three-minute AI-generated clip from creative studio Heavy Pulp, built using Grok Imagine and depicting an Odysseus figure in gold armour on a beach with a fleet of ancient ships anchored behind him.

What Elon Musk announced?

Posting on X, Musk wrote that before the year ends, Grok Imagine would make a full-length movie of the Odyssey that stays historically accurate and true to Homer's work. Musk was quote-tweeting Heavy Pulp's post, which had also shared a thread detailing how the clip was produced. In a separate post, Musk said he was open to backing a fan's suggestion of funding actor Mel Gibson with $100 million to direct a historically accurate Odyssey adaptation featuring dialogue delivered in Homeric Greek.

Timing tied to Nolan's Odyssey release

The announcement lands days after Christopher Nolan's star-studded, live-action Odyssey adaptation, starring Matt Damon as Odysseus, opened in theatres worldwide. The film posted a $124.5 million domestic opening and a $264.1 million global debut, making it Nolan's biggest worldwide opening ever. Despite the commercial success, the film drew criticism from Musk and some conservative viewers over its casting choices, including Lupita Nyong'o's casting as Helen of Troy, which sparked debate online. Musk has suggested an AI-made version could avoid such casting controversies by leaning more directly on historical and literary sources.

Grok Imagine's track record so far

Musk's pledge builds on a rapid buildup of momentum for xAI's video generation tools. Grok had no video generation capability as recently as July 2025. By January 2026, Grok Imagine had generated over 1.245 billion unique videos in a single month, and its most recent update, Grok Imagine Video 1.5, launched on June 3, adding 720p image-to-video generation with motion and audio. In early June, an earlier Grok Imagine-generated trailer for Homer's Iliad crossed 18.4 million views on X, with Heavy Pulp and Musk publicly discussing the idea of extending the format into a full movie even before the Odyssey clip surfaced.