Fountain O has unveiled Odysseus: The Fall, a 135-minute AI-generated feature that is designed to orbit Christopher Nolan’s big-budget The Odyssey rather than avoid it. The company says the timing is intentional, using the scale of Nolan’s film to draw attention to a very different kind of movie made with AI tools and a much smaller budget.
Director Ash Koosha, who previously made the AI-driven Iranian resistance film Dream of Violets for about $2,000, returns with a live-action tale budgeted at “mid-five figures.” Fountain O is framing the release as a public test of what audience curiosity can do when two versions of the same classic story arrive in the same period.
What Fountain O Says It Is Making
According to Fountain O, Odysseus: The Fall is built around “the fractured memory of a drowning man in his final minutes.” The synopsis describes a voyage that becomes a trial, where “every monster wears his own handwriting,” and says the film ends “not with a hero’s welcome, but with forgiveness offered by the one person who knows exactly who he is.”
The company says the movie is an attempt to strip away the usual heroic framing around Odysseus and focus on what he actually did to get home. Koosha has said the point is not to threaten filmmaking, but to reduce the distance between a person with a story and the means to tell it.
How The Film Was Made
| Element | Tool Or Method | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Actors, sets and cameras | AI models | Fully replaced in production |
| Script, images and voicing of characters | Human creativity by Ash Koosha | Developed by Koosha |
| Image rendering | Kling | Used for every scene |
| Imagery and core frames | Google Nanobanana | Used in the feature’s visual pipeline |
| Language editing | Claude AI | Used for language-related editing |
| Project research | Google Gemini | Used during development |
| Blocking, frame accuracy and world modeling | Fountain O proprietary tech | Used to support production |
Fountain O says the production also leaned on its own proprietary video workflow, while Pooya Koosha said the team used Kling to develop the image rendering of every scene. He added that each film has become a chance to build new tools and techniques for AI movie production.
Why The Release Is Tied To Nolan’s Epic
Koosha said he hopes Nolan’s The Odyssey succeeds at the box office, because curiosity around both films could bring more viewers into theaters. In his words, people may want to compare “the ultimate in human creation” with one person’s collaboration with AI.
Nolan’s film stars Matt Damon as Odysseus, with Anne Hathaway as Penelope and Tom Holland as Telemachus. The cast also includes Zendaya, Robert Pattinson, Lupita Nyong’o, Jon Bernthal, Travis Scott and Charlize Theron.
Tom Rogers, executive chairman of Fountain O and executive producer of Odysseus: The Fall, said the goal is to create a basis of comparison in the same time frame as a movie from one of the world’s most revered directors. He argued that moviegoers may be curious enough to see both films as a way to better understand what AI can already contribute to filmmaking.
A Wider Push Behind The Project
Rogers and Koosha are also using the release to promote Fountain O’s proprietary AI video production software. Rogers previously founded CNBC while running NBC Cable, and Fountain O says the project is part of a wider effort to democratize movie making with AI tools.
The Koosha brothers were born in Iran and left the country in 2009. They also have a history in cloud computing and AI through Claigrid, a cloud AI personalization company where Rogers served as executive chairman.
For now, Odysseus: The Fall and Dream of Violets will be made available to stream through the Fountain O website at a $9.99 per-title rental price. Dream of Violets is set to stream on July 17, while Odysseus: The Fall will arrive later this summer.