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With a sensational second weekend at the box office, it’s clear “The Odyssey” will have a long — and epic — journey in theaters.
Christopher Nolan’s take on Homer’s 3,000-year-old poem, starring Matt Damon as the Greek
king Odysseus, has generated a remarkable $652 million worldwide, including $289 million domestically and $362 million internationally after just 10 days of release. It’s already the sixth-highest grossing Hollywood movie of the year at the global box office — no small feat for a sword-and-sandal epic that’s rated R and clocks in at nearly three hours.
With euphoric word-of-mouth and staggering demand for premium large formats like Imax, “The Odyssey” is expected to shatter all kinds of records throughout the rest of summer and into the fall. It could overtake 2009’s “The Dark Knight” ($1.008 billion) and 2012’s “The Dark Knight Rises” ($1.08 billion) as Nolan’s highest-grossing film. Depending on staying power and the turnout in China (it doesn’t open there until Aug. 14), “The Odyssey” could eventually surpass 2024’s “Deadpool & Wolverine” ($1.33 billion) as the largest R-rated release in history. And it’s on pace to rank among Imax’s biggest hits, though the all-time benchmark set by 2009’s “Avatar” ($270 million) might be tough to beat.
“’The Odyssey’ has crossed over from hit blockbuster to global cultural event,” Imax’s CEO Richard Gelfond said over the weekend.
As “The Odyssey” continues its grand big-screen voyage, here are six ways to contextualize the big-budget movie’s massive commercial success.
1. “The Odyssey” earned more in its second weekend than most of this year’s movies did in their first
“The Odyssey” scored a stellar $90 million in its sophomore outing, a barely-there 27% decline from its $123.5 million debut. (Most tentpoles that open above $100 million would decline by 50% or more in subsequent weekends.) Just how significant is that second-weekend haul? Hits like “The Devil Wears Prada 2” ($76 million) and “Project Hail Mary” ($80 million) didn’t even generate that much to start. In fact, only three other movies in 2026 — “Toy Story 5,” “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” and “Michael — earned above $90 million in their opening weekends. In terms of records, “The Odyssey” marks the biggest second weekend of the year, ahead of “Toy Story 5” with $70 million, as well as the second-largest second weekend ever for an R-rated movie, following “Deadpool & Wolverine” with $96 million in its sophomore outing. And those two films hail from major franchises, not a centuries-old poem.
2. Second weekend ticket sales were bigger than the start of “Oppenheimer”
Three summers ago, “Oppenheimer” launched above expectations to $82 million, a significant chunk of change for a historical drama that’s heavy on talking and light on action. It’s no surprise “The Odyssey” loomed much larger in its debut, but it’s a testament to Nolan’s box office durability that second-weekend sales were bigger than the opening of “Oppenheimer.” His biopic about the father of the atomic bomb left theaters with a sizable $330 million in North America and $975 million globally, so there’s no telling where ticket sales for “The Odyssey” will top out.
3. Imax ticket sales hit $140 million after two weekends of release
“The Odyssey” has been a juggernaut in Imax with $140 million globally, becoming the company’s second-fastest film to hit $100 million after clearing the benchmark in 10 days. Only 2019’s behemoth “Avengers: Endgame” was quicker to the milestone. And “The Odyssey” hasn’t even landed in major international markets including China, Japan and Korea. To put those revenues in context, “Oppenheimer” was considered a massive success with $180 million in Imax by the end of its theatrical run. Given the goodwill from “Oppenheimer,” Nolan’s penchant for the format, and the reality that many Imax showtimes are sold out into September, “The Odyssey” will surpass the lifetime Imax haul of “Oppenheimer” after less than a month of release.
4. “The Odyssey” has generated around the same as all of Warner Bros., Sony and Paramount’s 2026 releases combined
That’s right — one of Universal’s movies (a non-franchise film, for that matter) has amassed more than the entire slates from three major studios — Warner Bros. ($622.6 million across seven movies including “The Bride!” and “Supergirl”), Sony ($344.1 million across four movies, though next weekend’s “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” will single-handedly change that calculus) and Paramount ($595 million across six movies including “Scary Movie” and “Scream 7”) — in this calendar year, according to Rentrak. That’s all thanks to Nolan. According to PostTrak, audiences cited the director as the main reason for buying a ticket to “The Odyssey.” Now that’s box office prowess.
5. “The Odyssey” is holding better than Nolan’s other biggest releases
Nolan is behind “The Dark Knight” trilogy, widely considered the best comic book movies of all time. So it’s all the more remarkable that “The Odyssey” is pacing to become the director’s biggest film ever. Already, “The Odyssey” is exhibiting better staying power than those cinematic triumphs: “The Dark Knight” earned $75 million in its second weekend after opening to $158 million while “The Dark Knight Rises” collected $62 million in its second weekend after debuting to $160 million. In the decade-plus since those “Batman” movies, Nolan has become a brand unto himself. It’s safe to assume he’ll have carte blanche for his next big idea.
6. “The Odyssey” hasn’t opened yet in China
Oh yeah, and “The Odyssey” has been steamrolling expectations without China, the world’s second-biggest moviegoing market. The country is rolling out the red-carpet treatment for “The Odyssey,”which is expected to play on nearly 800 Imax screens — and across thousands of standard auditoriums. Tickets haven’t gone on sale yet in mainland China, though the ticketing agency Maoyan Pro notes the “want to see” registrations for “The Odyssey” surpassed 252,000 by July 24, ahead of every other upcoming Hollywood release that’s been tracked by the platform. Nolan’s biggest movie in China is 2014’s sci-fi mind-bender “Interstellar” with $139 million, while his recent efforts were only modest successes in the country, with “Oppenheimer” earning $61 million, 2020’s time-bending “Tenet” generating $66 million, and 2017’s war drama “Dunkirk” making $50 million. China has been hostile to plenty of Hollywood blockbusters in recent years. Will “The Odyssey” have enough hype to become a hit?
