X’s Grok Imagine ‘Odyssey’ contest winner faces scrutiny

Elon Musk’s monthslong campaign against Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” has produced its first tangible alternative — and it’s drawing scrutiny of its own.

Mr. Musk spent the summer attacking Mr. Nolan’s adaptation of Homer’s epic over its casting choices, at one point writing on X that the director “desecrated Homer and groveled on his knees just to meet the woke rules required to win an Oscar.” He vowed that xAI’s Grok would produce a full-length “historically accurate” version of the poem by the end of 2026 — a deadline that has not yet passed, meaning the promised film has not appeared but is not technically overdue. 

Ahead of that, X launched a contest using xAI’s Grok Imagine, offering $100,000 to whoever could use the tool to produce three to five minutes of Odyssey footage with at least a minute of dialogue, according to TechRadar. Filmmaker Nem Perez took the top prize with a five-minute clip he called “’The Odyssey’ as Homer intended,” built around Odysseus recounting his journey to Princess Nausicaa and the Phaeacians. Mr. Perez said he chose that framing because Nolan’s film omitted those characters — an omission independently confirmed by Looper, which reported that Mr. Nolan shifted that narrative role to Calypso instead. Second and third place, worth $50,000 and $25,000, went to creators known on X as @JSFILMZ0412 and @Mr_AllenT.

The winning entry has since drawn scrutiny for departures from the source material it was billed as honoring. Futurism reported Monday that the Cyclops Polyphemus — canonically one-eyed — appears with three eyes and changes size between shots, and separately noted that some of the Greek soldiers in the clip are outfitted in Roman legionary armor. As of that Monday report, Mr. Musk had not responded to or shared the winning video on X, Futurism said, something he has done for other Grok-generated Odyssey clips.

Mr. Nolan’s “Odyssey,” meanwhile, has become Universal Pictures’ highest-grossing release ever. The studio announced this month that the film had passed $1.677 billion worldwide, overtaking 2015’s “Jurassic World,” and now stands as the highest-grossing R-rated film and highest-grossing IMAX release of all time.