{"id":942076,"date":"2026-07-17T23:16:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T23:16:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/942076\/"},"modified":"2026-07-17T23:16:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T23:16:14","slug":"the-odyssey-box-office-christopher-nolan-movie-gets-17-5m-in-previews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/942076\/","title":{"rendered":"The Odyssey Box Office: Christopher Nolan Movie Gets 17.5M in Previews"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tChristopher Nolan<\/a>\u2018s The Odyssey<\/a> sets sail on its box office voyage as the star-studded retelling of the classical mythological tale aims to get moviegoers back in the saddle after a recent stretch of underperforming debuts<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\n\tUniversal Pictures<\/a>\u2018 feature collected $17.6 million from Thursday previews on 3,900 North American screens as it targets a $50 million Friday and a better-than-expected $117 million opening weekend. (It was projected to bow to between the mid-$80 million range to upwards of $100 million). That would give it both the top live-action opening of the year, and the top R-rated opening of the year, as well as Universal\u2019s opening weekend for an R-rated film ever.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe film eyes a global start around $200 million and carries a hefty $250 million production budget. <\/p>\n

\n\tMatt Damon<\/a>, Tom Holland<\/a>, Anne Hathaway<\/a>, Robert Pattinson<\/a> and Lupita Nyong\u2019o star in the story of Odysseus (Damon) aiming to return home after the Trojan War to reclaim his throne as the king of Ithaca and reunite with wife Penelope (Hathaway).<\/p>\n

\n\tNolan\u2019s biggest domestic opening of his career was The Dark Knight Rises in July 2012, as the Batman sequel soared with $160 million domestically before surpassing $1 billion in its global run. The filmmaker\u2019s most recent release was 2023\u2019s Oppenheimer<\/a>, which opened to $82.4 million domestically and ultimately picked up $975 million worldwide, along with winning seven Academy Awards, including best picture and Nolan\u2019s first best director Oscar. While The Odyssey is the lone wide release opening this weekend, Oppenheimer famously was part of the cultural sensation known as Barbenheimer, with Greta Gerwig\u2019s Barbie sharing its July 21 release date as social media users boasted about catching the unlikely double feature. <\/p>\n

\n\tThe Odyssey marks the first film to be shot entirely on IMAX cameras, making premium large formats a key draw for many moviegoers. Given that only 25 U.S. theaters screen IMAX 70mm film, those tickets have been particularly coveted for cinephiles. <\/p>\n

\n\tCritics largely adore The Odyssey, as its 96 percent approval rating from Rotten Tomatoes represents Nolan\u2019s best score of his career. Just behind that are The Dark Knight and Memento at 94 percent, with Oppenheimer hitting 93. In his review of The Odyssey<\/a> for The Hollywood Reporter, chief film critic David Rooney deemed it \u201ca meditative action movie both immense and intimate, albeit one whose flow is impeded by the inherently episodic nature of the nonlinear source material and some questionable casting choices.\u201d Additionally, THR\u2019s list that ranks Nolan\u2019s oeuvre<\/a> puts The Odyssey in second place behind only The Dark Knight. <\/p>\n

\n\tUniversal\u2019s adaptation of Homer\u2019s epic work of Greek literature also has the benefit of the following weekend being a rare July frame to not hold any new wide releases. Studios were apparently reticent to place a title in between this weekend\u2019s The Odyssey and the July 31 release for Sony\u2019s Spider-Man: Brand New Day, also starring Holland and Zendaya. <\/p>\n

\n\tServing as potential competition for moviegoing this weekend, particularly for international audiences, is Sunday\u2019s World Cup final between Spain and Argentina. It takes place in the afternoon at New Jersey\u2019s MetLife Stadium. <\/p>\n

\n\tAfter getting off to a disappointing start last weekend<\/a>, Disney\u2019s live-action Moana<\/a> will hope to have legs as it skews more female than the R-rated The Odyssey and eyes a stretch without new competition for the family market. Also recently opening under projections have been DC Studios\u2019 Supergirl and Illumination\u2019s Minions & Monsters, although the latter showed a respectable second-weekend decline<\/a>, suggesting viewers are still finding it. <\/p>\n

\n\tDuring a recent sit-down with THR<\/a>, The Odyssey actor Jon Bernthal detailed challenging moments during the shoot, including being submerged in chilly water for the memorable Trojan Horse sequence while playing Menelaus. Bernthal recalled that Nolan offered to remove him from the water, to which the performer screamed back: \u201cYou ain\u2019t breaking me, Chris. There\u2019s nothing you can do to break me.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\t12:57 p.m. <\/strong>Updated with latest estimates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Christopher Nolan\u2018s The Odyssey sets sail on its box office voyage as the star-studded retelling of the classical…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":942077,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[9],"tags":[25375,26299,171,49069,17824,49071,102222,3279,1748,67,132,184,68],"class_list":["post-942076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-anne-hathaway","tag-christopher-nolan","tag-entertainment","tag-matt-damon","tag-moana","tag-oppenheimer","tag-robert-pattinson","tag-the-odyssey","tag-tom-holland","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-universal-pictures","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116937869670136421","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/942076","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=942076"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/942076\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/942077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=942076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=942076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=942076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}