Key keywords: Christopher Nolan, The Odyssey countdown trailer, record YouTube dislikes, 2025 epic film, Warner Bros. Pictures, fan backlash, casting controversy, ancient Greek epic adaptation Less than a year after Christopher Nolan took home seven Oscars for his biographical epic Oppenheimer, the acclaimed director’s upcoming project has found itself at the center of unprecedented online backlash. On Tuesday, Warner Bros. Pictures released a 90-second countdown trailer for Nolan’s highly anticipated adaptation of Homer’s The Odyssey, a project first announced in late 2023 that had been ranked as one of 2025’s most anticipated releases by nearly every major film industry outlet. The short promo, which was intended to tease the release of the full official trailer set to drop next Friday, immediately drew intense criticism from viewers across social media and YouTube. Third-party analytics tools confirmed that the video racked up more than 12.1 million dislikes in its first 24 hours on YouTube, breaking the previous record of 8.9 million dislikes set by Disney’s 2023 live-action *The Little Mermaid* teaser. Warner Bros. disabled public dislike counts on the video just 12 hours after its release, leading to further frustration from viewers who accused the studio of attempting to cover up the negative response. Much of the criticism stems from two core choices highlighted in the countdown trailer: the film’s reimagined setting, and its lead casting. Contrary to early reports that the film would be a grounded, period-accurate take on the ancient Greek epic, the teaser revealed that Nolan has set the story in a distant interstellar future, where Odysseus is a space fleet commander attempting to return to his home colony after a decade-long intergalactic war. Many classics fans and literary scholars slammed the choice as a disrespectful erasure of the epic’s foundational Greek cultural context, arguing that the story’s themes of homecoming, grief, and identity are inextricably tied to its original ancient Mediterranean setting. Additional backlash targeted the casting of 37-year-old Robert Pattinson in the lead role of Odysseus, with viewers noting that the character is traditionally depicted as a middle-aged king who spent 20 years away from his family, making Pattinson appear far too young for the part as written. Warner Bros. released a brief statement on Wednesday addressing the backlash, noting that the countdown teaser only included “1% of the film’s total footage” and that the full trailer would showcase how Nolan’s sci-fi framing actually honors the core themes of Homer’s original work. Nolan himself has not yet commented on the negative response, though sources close to the director told *Variety* that he remains unphased by the online reaction and is confident in the final cut of the film. Despite the record dislikes, the teaser also earned 327 million views in its first 24 hours, marking the highest view count for any advance film promo in history, leading some industry analysts to suggest the backlash may actually function as effective reverse marketing for the project ahead of its planned November 2025 theatrical release.