‘The Odyssey’ Box Office Journey Begins With $17.6M in Previews

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Christopher Nolan‘s The Odyssey 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.

Universal Pictures‘ feature collected $17.6 million from Thursday previews on 3,900 North American screens as it targets a projected opening between the mid-$80 million range to upwards of $100 million. The film eyes a global start around $200 million and carries a hefty $250 million production budget. Matt Damon, Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Robert Pattinson and Lupita Nyong’o 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).

Nolan’s 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’s most recent release was 2023’s Oppenheimer, 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’s 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’s Barbie sharing its July 21 release date as social media users boasted about catching the unlikely double feature.

The 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.

Critics largely adore The Odyssey, as its 96 percent approval rating from Rotten Tomatoes represents Nolan’s 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 for The Hollywood Reporter, chief film critic David Rooney deemed it “a 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.” Additionally, THR’s list that ranks Nolan’s oeuvre puts The Odyssey in second place behind only The Dark Knight.

Universal’s adaptation of Homer’s 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’s The Odyssey and the July 31 release for Sony’s Spider-Man: Brand New Day, also starring Holland and Zendaya.

Serving as potential competition for moviegoing this weekend, particularly for international audiences, is Sunday’s World Cup final between Spain and Argentina. It takes place in the afternoon at New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium.

After getting off to a disappointing start last weekend, Disney’s live-action Moana 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’ Supergirl and Illumination’s Minions & Monsters, although the latter showed a respectable second-weekend decline, suggesting viewers are still finding it.

During a recent sit-down with THR, 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: “You ain’t breaking me, Chris. There’s nothing you can do to break me.”