Nolan’s ‘The Odyssey’ opens to $264m at worldwide box office

Fresh off the seven-Oscar success of “Oppenheimer”, Christopher Nolan’s 13th film, “The Odyssey”, the first narrative feature shot entirely in IMAX, has opened to $264 million at the worldwide box office.

Nolan has long earned the audience’s trust, consistently delivering visually striking and thought-provoking films throughout his more than 25-year career.

Following widespread acclaim from critics and audiences, Nolan’s adaptation of Homer’s ancient Greek epic, which follows Greek hero Odysseus (Matt Damon) during his perilous 10-year journey home after the Trojan War, debuted with $264 million at the worldwide box office. 

The film set Nolan’s biggest global opening weekend and pushed his career total past $6.2 billion, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

It earned $124 million domestically, marking his highest opening outside the Batman franchise, with 23.8% of the domestic total coming from IMAX screens.

Nolan was first introduced to “The Odyssey” during a grade-school play and nearly adapted the story while briefly developing 2004’s “Troy”. 

During that time, he envisioned Odysseus’ deceptive Trojan Horse resting on the beach of Troy, an image he later established within the opening 30 seconds of “The Odyssey”.

It was only after he began writing the screenplay that Nolan realised how many elements of “The Odyssey” had unconsciously influenced his earlier films. 

As a result, his adaptation also reflects themes and ideas found throughout his own filmography.

The film echoes Alfred Borden (Christian Bale) from “The Prestige”, Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) in “Inception” and the Allied soldiers in “Dunkirk”, all struggling to return home to their families. 

It also features a ghost-like figure watching their own home, Coop (Matthew McConaughey) from “Interstellar” and Bruce Wayne (Bale) in “The Dark Knight Rises”. 

Most notably, Nolan’s mythological epic shares thematic connections with “Tenet” and “Oppenheimer”.

In the film, the Trojan Horse represents to Odysseus what the atomic bomb represented to J Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy), as both men fear their extraordinary ingenuity has permanently changed warfare and threatened civilisation.

Nolan said the similarities only became clear after completing the film.

“Now that I look back on it after finishing ‘The Odyssey’, there are interesting parallels [to ‘Oppenheimer’],” Nolan told The Hollywood Reporter. “I try to leave each film I do with thematic concerns and questions that stay a little bit open for me and hopefully the audience too. They are things that I want to explore further without being too self-conscious about it.”