ElevenLabs has put out a fully AI-made audiobook of Homer's Odyssey narrated by a synthetic Michael Caine, timed for the run-up to Christopher Nolan's film of the epic. The 13-hour recording is free on its ElevenReader app.
Caine licensed his voice to the company's Iconic Marketplace last November. The production adds 20 other AI voices plus AI sound effects and music, uses a public-domain 1870s translation, and was made by four producers in six weeks. Caine is not in Nolan's film.
ElevenLabs staff told the New York Times the timing was chosen to ride interest in the movie and to show what licensed celebrity voices can do, adding that audiences will decide how much AI media they want. TheWrap recalls the online anger when Caine's and Matthew McConaughey's deals were announced, and a similar reaction to Martin Scorsese working with an AI storyboarding and previsualisation company.
It also places the release among wider tech-company bets on AI media, noting that services such as Spotify and Alexa+ are filling up with AI-made content while real listener demand remains unclear. Nolan's The Odyssey, with Matt Damon and Tom Holland among its cast, opens in US cinemas on 17 July.
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