With Christopher Nolan’s film adaptation coming, not being fully prepared was not an option. So Wall, now 21, took up translating the epic poem. He sniffed it out over a few days and then read it again. He also read Virgil’s “The Aeneid,” which includes the story of the Trojan Horse, an element of Nolan’s film coming out Friday.

“I need to make sure I read it so I know if it’s accurate or not,” Wall said.

The wall is not alone. Readers are exploring different versions of the story so they can prepare to see Matt Damon play Odysseus on his 10-year journey home after the Trojan War. TikTok is filled with videos of readers holding copies of the translation by classicist Emily Wilson of the University of Pennsylvania, whom Nolan referenced as a source. According to publisher WW Norton, the approximately 500-page book saw a significant increase in sales last year.

Think of it this way: After nearly 3,000 years, Nolan is finally making people do their homework.

All this must be at least a little distressing to English teachers and Homeric scholars, who have long tried to get students to appreciate the material like they do.

“It’s not like we’re here trying to sell you lemons,” said Bard humanities professor Daniel Mendelsohn, who has published his own translation of the poem. “It’s a Rolls-Royce, just get in it and take it for a drive and you’ll wonder why you ever drove anything else.”

Nevertheless, Mendelssohn and other teachers would prevail.

“Frankly, anything that gets people to read or listen to Homer is fine with me,” said Professor Lawrence Kim of the Department of Classical Studies at Trinity University.

Some movie fans are just discovering that the $250 million production is not an original screenplay.

When Nolan’s film was announced, Matt Ramos, a comic book movie creator known as “Supes”, posted a screenshot of a search that informed him that “The Odyssey” is “a retelling of a poem written in ancient Greece more than 2,000 years ago.”

Many people replied in disbelief that they had to Google the title. Cole is related to Ramos, a 21-year-old film student in Vojvoda, Virginia. “It’s never been a recognizable name to me,” said Vojvoda, who wants to wait until he sees the film to read the poem.

Jayren Reyes also says that going through the entire 24 books of poetry was not on his immediate to-do list. But the 21-year-old Calgary man says he has familiarized himself with the Wikipedia page.

Some people are going inside. Duncan Rengozzi-La Barre, a marketing professional in Wales and a big fan of Nolan, decided that he would read “The Odyssey” in full. The 42-year-old says he was looking for a “satisfying feeling” of knowing the source material as he sat down to watch the film on the biggest, loudest screen.

“I went in completely cold,” he said. “All I knew was that it was a guy coming home. I didn’t know what he was returning home from.”

As English teachers have been trying to explain to students for years, new readers are learning that “The Odyssey” is actually extremely entertaining.

Nella Williams, a 25-year-old content creator in Atlanta, was so engaged that she said she had a physical reaction to a scene while reading a translation by Robert Fogles during a July 4 cookout.

“It feels very human while being fictional,” he said.

Zach Musiakiewicz, 24, didn’t think “The Odyssey” was something he’d ever like when he bought a copy of it at a used bookstore, but he was pleasantly surprised.

“I really enjoyed it,” he said. “I enjoyed it as if it were a modern, fun, fantasy adventure.”

The result for Benedek Cruchio, an assistant professor of classics at Yale: Friends who normally want to talk about sports or anything else “suddenly are interested in my supposed expertise.”

Write to Esther Zuckerman at esther.zuckerman@wsj.com and Connor Hart at Connor.Hart@wsj.com.