When Elon Musk promised on July 21 that a “historically accurate,” “full-length movie” version of The Odyssey would be created and released through Grok Imagine, his company’s AI generator, by year’s end, the Razzies got excited.
“Elon would be adding quite a bit of fodder for our awards season,” Maureen “Mo” Murphy, co-founder of the Golden Raspberry Awards, told Gold Derby at the time.
Well, things appear to have changed — for better or for worse.
Musk‘s much-touted take on The Odyssey is actually just a seven-minute webisode, not a movie. Released on Oct. 23 with the help of WonderStudiosX and director Dev Walker, the project is described as “Episode 1.” However, there is no information on when (or if) future episodes will be released.
“Looks like he’s creating a new category — which he’ll dominate, of course,” Murphy now tells us.
While the Razzies don’t have a Worst Short Film category (at least not yet!), Musk’s seven-minute Odyssey will likely still be eligible in races like Worst Director, Worst Screenplay, and Worst Remake, Rip-Off, or Sequel. Presumably, it’s too small to compete in Worst Picture, but we’ll have to wait and see.
This all started when the trillionaire X owner took issue with Christopher Nolan’s highly anticipated The Odyssey for the so-called “woke” casting of Lupita Nyong’o as Helen of Troy and Elliot Page as a Greek warrior. Musk, who was born in South Africa, believes Nolan should not have cast Black or trans people considering the film is set in ancient Greece. In turn, Musk announced his “historically accurate” edition of Homer’s epic poem using Grok.
Notably, Musk has been silent on the issue in the wake of Nolan’s film finding great success. The Odyssey earned $1.79 billion at the global box office and is the front-runner to win Best Picture at the 2027 Oscars. It’s also about 165 minutes longer than Musk’s version — not that size matters.
“The intent behind the storytelling as much as the story itself (no matter the tool telling it) is what catches our attention,” the Razzies boss said in July. “And this certainly does. Elon’s South African roots are very apparent.”
While “AI is not going away,” fully artificial projects like Musk’s Odyssey are “worthy of our consideration,” Murphy added, because they are “used to cheat creative filmmakers out of work — or the storytelling is unoriginal, boring, or indefensible.”
The documentary Musk from director Alex Gibney is also eligible for Razzies, most notably in the Worst Actor contest for the subject of the four-hour piece. “Indeed a bad actor on the world stage,” Murphy declares about Musk.
Another high-profile project that has the Razzies’ attention is Digger, Tom Cruise’s box-office flop that is expected to lose $250 million. “Digger could certainly be up for our Barry L. Bumstead Award: a movie that cost a lot and lost a lot,” Murphy reveals. That dishonor was previously given to United Passions (2015), Misconduct (2016), CHiPs (2017), and Billionaire Boys Club (2018).
In February, the Razzies informed Gold Derby that the documentary about first lady Melania Trump was on their radar. “We are tracking Melania — that should be a shoo-in!” Murphy said at the time. She confirmed that, in years past, “we have nominated documentaries in the Worst Picture category,” citing Dinesh D’Souza’s Hillary’s America: The Secret History of the Democratic Party (2016) and Mike “The MyPillow Guy” Lindell’s Absolute Proof (2020). They both “won” the top category.
