An unauthorized version of Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey shared on X | The Odyssey

A leaked copy of The Odyssey was uploaded on Elon Musk’s X platform but soon after posting the post it got millions of views.

The high-profile video went viral over the weekend after an account linked to it said “Someone uploaded the full video of ‘The Odyssey’ on. X. Can you believe it?” A post showing the film has been viewed more than 3m times the account hosting the film which appears to have been downloaded has not been suspended by X.

Christopher Nolan’s film has been a box office and critical hit since its release in early July, Defense glowing reviews and more $600m at the global box office. It is unclear how the nearly three-hour bootleg film was obtained.

The leak doesn’t seem to have affected The Odyssey’s box office performance. The film’s worldwide gross rose to $640m after it took $87m in the US in its second weekend of releasea 30% drop in its opening weekend but a sign of its strength in the world’s largest cinema market by revenue.

In a statement, Universal said: “We became aware of the illegal distribution of the film and immediately initiated procedures to remove the film. We see this as a violation of copyright laws and will make every effort to protect our content and intellectual property rights.”

Musk, the owner of X, has been very critical of The Odyssey, using his choices – such as Black Actor Lupita Nyong’o as Helen of Troy – as vehicles for reiterating the principles that have become known about the culture of DEI through his X account. Last week the richest man in the world said that he would use its AI platform Grok Imagine to create a “historically accurate” version of Homer’s epic poem.

Nolan said criticism of his casting choices “comes with the part”: “These conversations that happen before people see the film – are always useless, because no one knows the film.

X has been contacted for comment.