{"id":913737,"date":"2026-07-05T07:59:19","date_gmt":"2026-07-05T07:59:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/913737\/"},"modified":"2026-07-05T07:59:19","modified_gmt":"2026-07-05T07:59:19","slug":"fans-are-already-being-blamed-for-the-odyssey-backlash-as-trailer-dislikes-hit-350k","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/913737\/","title":{"rendered":"Fans Are Already Being Blamed for The Odyssey Backlash as Trailer Dislikes Hit 350K"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Odyssey doesn\u2019t open for another two weeks, and the blame game<\/strong> has already started. Surprise.<\/p>\n

The official countdown trailer\u2019s numbers have exploded since we first reported the ratio<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\"OdysseyScreenshot via YouTube<\/p>\n

Update: <\/strong>The dislikes have shot up to over 350k<\/strong>, with the comments close to 20k<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Lupita Nyong\u2019o is receiving renewed backlash<\/a> as the controversy is now also affecting the international premiere, set to take place in London on Monday.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

RELATED<\/p>\n


\n
\n \"Lupita
\n
\n Lupita Nyong\u2019o Helen of Troy Backlash Goes International Before Odyssey Premiere
\n The Odyssey holds its world premiere in London on Monday, and Universal is walking into it with the casting controversy no longer…
\n
\n <\/a> <\/p>\n

Previously:<\/p>\n

The dislikes now sit at roughly 338,000 against 55,000 likes on the Universal Pictures channel, per extensions that restore YouTube\u2019s hidden counts. That\u2019s about 86 percent negative on 4.3 million views, with over 18,000 comments, while the trailer sits at #4 on YouTube\u2019s movies trending chart.<\/p>\n

In two days, the dislike count grew sixfold. And right on cue, the industry commentariat has found its explanation: it\u2019s the fans\u2019 fault<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"OdysseyScreenshot via YouTube<\/p>\n

The \u201cRating Bombing\u201d Excuse Arrives Early<\/p>\n

Box office tracking outlet Box Office Theory addressed the trailer reaction this week, and the framing is something to behold. It\u2019s actually quite mind-blowing. You can\u2019t help but laugh.<\/p>\n

Per their \u201creport,\u201d the trailer released to \u201cmostly positive reactions\u201d<\/strong> and organic social scores, with the \u201cwaves of negative sentiment\u201d<\/strong> on trailer pages attributed to \u201cpolitical\/influencer-based rating bombing campaigns.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

So a third of a million dislikes on the studio\u2019s own channel are a bot problem? The mostly positive reaction is the real one? And the overwhelming negative one is manufactured? And the 18k+ comments are all made up???<\/p>\n

The same report also notes pre-sales remain dominated by IMAX and premium screens, which is a polite way of confirming what we\u2019ve been reporting for weeks<\/a>: the Nolan cinephile base locked in its seats a year ago, and general audience interest never followed.<\/p>\n

\"Odyssey<\/p>\n

The Comments Tell a Different Story<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the problem with the rating bombing theory. Dislike campaigns can inflate a number. They don\u2019t organically upvote comments by the tens of thousands.<\/p>\n

The top comment on the trailer, mocking Lupita Nyong\u2019o\u2019s Helen of Troy casting with \u201cLook at me, I\u2019m the Helen now,\u201d has over 10,000 likes<\/strong>. <\/p>\n

Right below it, \u201cThe face that emptied a thousand seats\u201d sits at 19,000<\/strong>. These aren\u2019t bots talking to each other.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

RELATED<\/p>\n


\n
\n \"The
\n
\n The Odyssey Is Now Christopher Nolan\u2019s Most Disliked Trailer Ever \u2014 And It\u2019s Not Close
\n Christopher Nolan trailers don’t get disliked. That has been true for fifteen years. Inception, The Dark Knight Rises, Interstellar, Dunkirk, Tenet, Oppenheimer…
\n
\n <\/a> <\/p>\n

This is the same casting backlash that has dogged the production for months<\/a>, now concentrated on the one page Universal can\u2019t curate.<\/p>\n

And the backlash predates the trailer entirely. <\/p>\n

Tracking showed audience interest plummeting over the casting controversy<\/a> weeks ago. Universal skipped influencer screenings<\/a>. A rating bombing campaign didn\u2019t produce weeks of soft tracking data. Audiences did.<\/p>\n

\"Lupita<\/p>\n

The Supergirl Playbook, Recycled<\/p>\n

If this feels familiar, it should. <\/p>\n

When Supergirl underperformed, the industry line was that women stayed home and fans were to blame<\/a>, not the movie or the choices behind it. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s part of a pattern we\u2019ve documented across franchises: when the audience says no, Hollywood blames the audience<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s remarkable here is the timing. <\/p>\n

The Supergirl excuses came after the box office verdict. The Odyssey excuses are being drafted before the movie has sold a single opening-weekend ticket. <\/p>\n

The narrative insurance is being written in advance, so that if the film underperforms against its $80 million to $100 million tracking<\/a> and reported $250 million budget, the story is already in place: it wasn\u2019t the casting, it was the fans.<\/p>\n

\"Odyssey<\/p>\n

The Verdict Comes July 17<\/p>\n

Per the same tracking report, critic social reactions arrive Monday, July 6, with the full review embargo lifting July 15, the same rollout Universal used for Oppenheimer. <\/p>\n

The big question is whether or not the critics will shill for Nolan or tell it like it is as they did for Supergirl? Of course, The Odyssey could very well be a good movie\u2026<\/p>\n

But great reviews were never the question. The question is whether the general audience that tracking says checked out over the casting shows up anyway. <\/p>\n

Dismissing 337,000 dislikes as rating bombing doesn\u2019t answer that question. It just guarantees that if the answer is no, somebody other than the studio will get the blame. Per the norm. <\/p>\n

For everything confirmed and still rumored about the film, see our full guide to Nolan\u2019s The Odyssey<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Matt McGloin is the editor-in-chief and publisher of Cosmic Book News, the independent entertainment news site he founded in 2008. He covers movies, comics, TV, video games and pop culture and has reported major industry scoops over the years, including revealing the Avengers: Endgame title ahead of its official announcement. Through Cosmic Book News, he helped Marvel Comics promote Guardians of the Galaxy and Nova through exclusive previews, artwork, and interviews, with the site also quoted in solicitations and on comic covers. He also reported on Marvel\u2019s Daredevil: Born Again retooling before it was later confirmed by the trades.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Odyssey doesn\u2019t open for another two weeks, and the blame game has already started. Surprise. The official…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":913738,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[28],"tags":[171,53,33797,3279,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-913737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-nolan","tag-the-odyssey","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116866317778888537","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/913737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=913737"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/913737\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/913738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=913737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=913737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=913737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}