The Odyssey: Why Christopher Nolan’s Movie Had Huge Box Office Opening

Christopher Nolan‘s box office journey with The Odyssey has gotten off to an eye-opening start.

If there were any questions regarding whether a nearly three-hour, R-rated adaptation of a 2,700-year-old Greek poem — not to mention a movie that initially got caught up in the culture wars — would find success, those concerns were swiftly vanquished. In landing 2026’s biggest live-action opening weekend, The Odyssey brought home $123.5 million domestically with a global launch of $263.7 million, with the latter marking the accomplished filmmaker’s highest-grossing worldwide opening ever.

It’s not news that Nolan, hot off his first best director Oscar for 2023’s Oppenheimer, has become a brand unto himself as he continues his run as one of Hollywood’s most sure-thing directors. But the fact that half of the film’s audiences were between the ages of 18 and 34 confirmed that he has captured the excitement of Gen Z and younger millennial filmgoers as much as that of older viewers who might typically be more drawn to an adaptation of classic literature. Audiences cited Nolan as their top reason for seeing The Odyssey, according to PostTrak surveys, which is no small feat, given that the star-studded cast includes Matt Damon, Tom Holland, Robert Pattinson, Anne Hathaway, Lupita Nyong’o, Zendaya, Charlize Theron and no shortage of others.

“We had high expectations for the movie and high expectations for our performance, and it exceeded both,” IMAX CEO Richard Gelfond tells The Hollywood Reporter. Indeed, fans were focused on experiencing the film on IMAX after The Odyssey became the first narrative feature shot entirely on the company’s cameras. “Chris knows how to use IMAX technology and the IMAX brand as well as anyone on the planet.”

The Odyssey is unlikely to drift away anytime soon, with Gelfond pointing out that IMAX presales for the film’s forthcoming sophomore frame “are equivalent to some of our really best movies’ opening weekends.” Competing studios presumably anticipated the high demand, as there are no wide releases scheduled for this coming weekend in between The Odyssey and the July 31 release of Sony’s similarly anticipated Spider-Man: Brand New Day, representing a rarity for a coveted July frame.

“Presales are just incredibly backloaded because we see people waiting to get the best seat that they can and see it in the way that the filmmaker intends it to be seen,” notes Fandango director of analytics and Box Office Theory founder Shawn Robbins. “There are plenty of theaters around the country where shows are almost — if not totally — sold out into the second, third, fourth weekend of the film’s run. So it definitely signals that The Odyssey will be around in theaters for quite a while, just like Oppenheimer was.”

The appeal for younger audiences can be felt not just in ticket sales but through engagement in other ways, as social media memes embraced The Odyssey, which centers on Damon’s Odysseus making his arduous trip back to Ithaca after the Trojan War. Additionally, the film became the fastest to hit a million watches on Letterboxd by accomplishing the feat in six days, half the time that it took previous champ Barbie and other titles since, like Project Hail Mary and Backrooms. Notably, 2010’s Inception was the first feature to reach the seven-figure milestone, proving Nolan’s longstanding credibility with cinephiles.

“Nolan has cultivated such an incredibly diverse audience, and a lot of it is that Gen Z and younger millennial side,” says Robbins. “That’s really all thanks to his library of films, especially over the last 10 or 15 years. We point to The Dark Knight and Inception and his earlier work, but also look at [2014’s] Interstellar. We saw high demand when Interstellar rereleased in theaters about a year and a half ago. It just kept gaining a following, and a lot of that was among younger moviegoers. With all of his films, there are tons of content creators breaking down his storytelling, his writing, maybe the cinematography or the music. There are just so many elements to his movies that intrigue and envelop people.”

In recent years, studios have emphasized the importance of eventizing filmgoing, hoping for buzzy word of mouth to encourage audiences to experience a project in a way that they can’t from their couch, and premium large format screens have emerged as a key way to accomplish this. The word of mouth was clearly stellar, between the film’s A CinemaScore and a 94 percent approval rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes, tied for Nolan’s best mark ever. This meant that viewers flocked not only to IMAX theaters — which pulled in $51.8 million globally to account for 23 percent of The Odyssey’s haul — but especially to the 41 theaters worldwide that screen IMAX 70mm film.

As for whether IMAX can expand the number of screens showing 70mm, Gelfond notes that the theater count is up from 30 at the time of the Oppenheimer release. “There are some inherent limitations on our ability to do it, including finding boxes that big to fit the right aspect ratio and finding projectors that we can refurbish,” he says. “We’re always looking, but it’s complicated.” The exec notes that he did see online conversation surrounding some individuals feeling priced out of the IMAX experience and adds about the company that does not set its ticket prices: “We’re as aggressive as we can be. We want to provide a great experience. We want the right aspect ratio. We want the projector to show the best image they can. We’re sensitive to the demand, but we’re not going to lower our quality standards.”

After a bumpy stretch of July weekends that saw underperforming openings for such franchise entries as Supergirl, Minions & Monsters and Moana, the industry is quickly embracing the newfound optimism. And while Nolan may have stood out among his movie’s bold-faced names, there’s no doubt that the starry cast added to the spectacle. Among those sparking social media chatter for The Odyssey was Holland, whose role as Odysseus’ son, Telemachus, gave him the opportunity for a high-profile performance without his superhero suit (although he’ll be onscreen as Spidey soon enough, too). “His performance in The Odyssey shows a new side of him that will really just continue to grow his fan base,” observes Robbins.

Perhaps Nolan himself best summed up a key element of his own movies’ appeal when explaining to THR about a goal that he carries throughout his work: “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.”