For millions of viewers, Christopher Nolan’s movie will have been their first introduction to the epic Ancient Greek story about Odysseus’ heroic journey home to his beloved wife Penelope at the end of the Trojan war.
And while The Odyssey has been adapted for the screen on numerous occasions in the past, what you might realise is that, at one point, Disney looked poised to have a go at it.
The story goes that, at the cusp of Disney’s so-called “Renaissance” towards the end of the 20th century – which saw the studio achieving renewed success thanks to films like The Little Mermaid, Beauty And The Beast, Aladdin and The Lion King – execs gathered the creative team for a series of so-called “Gong Show” pitch meetings.
In these quick fire meetings, writers and animators had a short amount of time to pitch their ideas for stories, many of which would then be greenlit.
One of these meetings saw a Disney-fied version of The Odyssey being put forward as an idea, with the company going as far as announcing in 1992 that the movie was in development.
Meanwhile, following the success of The Little Mermaid and Aladdin, directors John Musker and Ron Clements had hoped to pursue their passion project, a space-age reimagining of Treasure Island.
However, studio bosses at the time weren’t sold on the idea, and instead told the duo they’d need one more hit under their belts before they were allowed to put the wheels in motion on the project that would eventually become the 2002 cult classic Treasure Planet.
Instead, they were encouraged to have a look at some of the other approved ideas that were floating around, which included The Odyssey, as well as potential adaptations of Pygmillion and Don Quixote (neither of which got off the ground, either).
Ultimately, The Odyssey was dropped by Disney after they struggled to translate the source material to a family-friendly animated comedy, or settle on a cast of characters befitting of the winning streak Disney was on at that time.
However, Musker and Clements did end up helming another Ancient Greek adaptation, co-directing 1997’s Hercules.
Odysseus did end up making it into the Disney universe, too, when the character was included in an episode of the animated Hercules “midquel” TV series in the late 1990s.
Treasure Planet did eventually hit cinemas in 2002, and while it’s not exactly revered as a mainstream Disney classic (it has previously been included in round-ups of infamous box office bombs), it certainly has a loyal following all the same.
Musker and Clements went on to oversee another huge Disney hit just a decade ago, when they took on co-directing duties on 2016’s Moana, which is now one of the studio’s signature franchises.
