Going into The Odyssey’s opening weekend, the epic fantasy project from director Christopher Nolan was trending to kick off its box office run on a high note.
Early projections had the film grossing approximately $200 million at the worldwide box office following strong Thursday previews and advanced ticket sales, including sold-out IMAX showings across the nation. While projections can be wrong and we’ve seen more than a few blockbusters underperform at the box office this year, there was never an expectation that The Odyssey would underperform. The question really was about whether the early predictions were on the conservative side or would end up being right on the nose.
Well, after an amazing weekend at the box office, The Odyssey has officially surpassed predictions and helped make history for Nolan in the process.
The Odyssey is now Christopher Nolan’s biggest opening weekend ever
During its opening weekend, The Odyssey pulled in a massive $264.1 million worldwide, which makes the film the highest-grossing opening weekend in Christopher Nolan’s career. That’s right, The Odyssey is now Nolan’s biggest opening weekend in his illustrious career, besting The Dark Knight Rises’ opening weekend total of $249 million by over $15 million!
With its $139.6 million earnings in the international market, The Odyssey has become Nolan’s biggest international opening ever ahead of The Dark Knight Rises. (The Dark Knight Rises still holds the top spot for Nolan at the domestic box office with its $160 million to The Odyssey’s $124 million domestic opening.) The film also helped to make history for star Matt Damon, becoming the biggest opening ever for the Oscar-winning actor.
While The Odyssey might not have made history for Nolan in the U.S., the film did lead to Nolan’s biggest opening weekend of all time in a whopping 45 markets. According to Deadline, The Odyssey has become Nolan’s biggest opening weekend in France, Italy, Spain, Poland, the Netherlands, and Brazil.
The film also showed up strong for R-rated films. While Deadpool remains the king of R-rated opening weekends at the domestic box office, The Odyssey enjoyed the fourth-best R-rated opening behind Deadpool & Wolverine ($211.4 million), Deadpool ($132.4 million), and Deadpool 2 ($125.5 million). Still, The Odyssey can boast that it was the highest R-rated opening for a non-superhero film at the domestic box office, which is another notch in the win column for the film.
It’s not at all surprising that The Odyssey has performed as well as it has at the box office. Timing likely played a key role in the film’s success, as it opens at a quieter time in the summer box office schedule for adult moviegoers. While there have been some notable blockbusters to hit theaters in the last few weeks, said releases have skewed towards the family audience with the releases of Minions and Monsters and Moana.
The Odyssey also dropped two weeks before Sony’s Spider-Man: Brand New Day, which sets the film up for a strong second weekend before the Tom Holland, Zendaya, and Jon Bernthal-starring film opens and shoots to the No. 1 spot.
What will be interesting is to see where The Odyssey will ultimately finish its box office run when all is said and done and where it ranks among Nolan's all-time highest-grossing film list when its theatrical run ends. That's not likely to be anytime soon, though, as we imagine Universal Pictures will keep The Odyssey in theaters for an extended run!
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