New Delhi, April 29 -- The movies always feel bigger in the summer. The budgets. The ambition. The names. The stakes. This summer, Hollywood has many of the regulars on the lineup: "Spider-Man," "Minions," "Star Wars" and "Toy Story." But the most eagerly anticipated is not a superhero, toy, or franchise: It's a 3,000-year-old epic poem.

For filmmaker Christopher Nolan, "The Odyssey," out July 17, isn't just a story. It's the story: A foundational piece that deserved to be done on the biggest possible scale, with all the resources modern Hollywood had to offer.

"There's a massive amount of pressure," Nolan told The Associated Press. "Anyone taking on 'The Odyssey' is taking on the hopes and dreams of people for epic movies everywhere an...