Crisis and controversy have struck the New York Times on many occasions since its founding, in the eighteen-fifties. Few threats, however, have been as grave as the one that consumed the storied newspaper this summer, reportedly starting late July. It appears that editorial staff became aware that, unless emergency procedures were initiated, the following day’s edition of the Times would contain not a single article on the subject of Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey.”
“How the [expletive] did this [expletive] happen?” was the reaction of one source in senior management. “We’ve had since the [expletive] Bronze Age to prep for it,” the source added. “There’s no excuse.” No current or former employees of the Times were willing to go on record to discuss the near-disaster, but several staff members agreed to speak on condition of anonymity.
Nolan’s film was released on July 17th, but expectations had been high for more than a year. A succession of trailers, from July, 2025, onward, revealed further details of the movie. A Times article from February, 2026, bore the headline “Who Cares If Matt Damon’s ‘Odyssey’ Helmet Is Historically Accurate?” The debate intensified after the entrepreneur Elon Musk criticized Nolan for casting Lupita Nyong’o as Helen of Troy. In response, the Times ran a guest essay by Daniel Mendelsohn, a recent translator of Homer’s epic poem. A source at the paper commented, “I hate to say it, but thank God for Elon.”
As the release date for “The Odyssey” approached, the paper increased its coverage accordingly. “Yeah, we had that big Nolan profile, saying how anxious he was and everything,” a source said. “And getting Matt [Damon] and Tom [Holland] into the Times kitchen to make pizzas three days before the movie came out—genius.”
Once the film was in theatres, according to a source in the Opinion department, “the gloves were off. Sharon [Waxman, a contributing writer] said the culture-war stuff was dead, which was a smart way of stoking it all over again. Michelle [Goldberg, a columnist] had another pop at Musk, which always goes down well. Then Maureen [Dowd, a columnist] said the movie wasn’t sexy or weird enough, which of course sent the comments into a frenzy.” At this point, the source was interrupted by the delivery of a large fruit basket from the marketing department of Universal Pictures, which the source was quick to decline.
Then the crisis hit.
In the words of the senior-management source, “It came out of nowhere. We had a piece on what’s so great about eating a [expletive] lotus flower. We went gaga over that hot black outfit worn by Rob [Pattinson, who plays Antinous]. There was an interview with the woman who was the stunt double for Matt [Damon]. We did a story on the popcorn that you scoop into the belly of a [expletive] horse, like, a plastic Trojan horse. We were on fire. Then, suddenly, nothing.”
According to reports, a midmorning meeting was hastily scheduled. “We needed something that could be commissioned and filed in half a day,” a source who was at the meeting confirmed. “Someone from Cooking suggested tips for re-creating the dish that Circe serves to Odysseus’ men, but legal said that turning readers’ families into pigs was a recipe for class-action lawsuits, so that was out. I was about to pitch a piece to Travel about going on vacation to Hades, like a once-in-a-lifetime thing, but then, hallelujah, the Wilson call came in.”
