Posted on 07/18/2026 9:03:49 AM PDT by MinorityRepublican
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 $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’s opening weekend for an R-rated film ever.
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.
(Excerpt) Read more at hollywoodreporter.com ...
Look how epic it could have been: Army Silly Walk
Doing the math... Divide $17.6M by 3,900 IMAX theater screens then assuming $20 per ticket. I get about 225 filled seats per location (average). You’d have to assume that there were multiple screenings at each venue with would reduce that 225 number, but I don’t know if the preview run allows for that.
Seems like an underwhelming number for this Nolan project.
No problem.
I may be wrong. But at least they'll break even.
There's a lot of propaganda regarding this movie.
So many potential customers will feel "obligated" to watch this movie because it is the morally just thing for them to do.
Something like that will happen. The pre-release sparring between the studio, Christopher Nolan and the actors on one hand, and the skeptics on the other kind of tips what is going on here. For Nolan, this is about winning awards and making a statement with progressive Hollywood. For Hollywood this is about DEI and the right kind of pre-release controversy that will put progressives in the seats. For the actors it's about feeding their egos as much as anything.
But for the Media it will be about sticking it to middle America.
It will be declared a success regardless. It already has. The almighty critics have spoken.
“But for the Media it will be about sticking it to middle America.”
One agenda that they can all agree on. They hate us, and people are still giving them millions. This is another level of stupid.
And related to what you said, most people have the nice widescreen TV sets nowadays, which provide a crisp sharp sizable picture to watch at home.
I know some people say that some movies really should be seen in a theater on a large screen , with all the sound effects of theater sound systems. But with today’s widescreen TVs, is the a theater experience really superior to what you get at home nowadays?
I didn’t realize movies go to streaming so quickly after theatrical release nowadays. I’m sure critical masses of people just figure, even if there’s a movie they want to see, they’ll just watch it when it comes on streaming services.
Per AI, sourced to Newsweak...
“Only 25 cinemas in the US are equipped to project true 15-perf/70mm IMAX film.”
The only cinemas I’ve looked at on-line with sold out showings are these.
At 3 hours long, only 3 showings a day.
Then there’s the higher ticket price for the premium large format screens...
Only around $115 mil...
Bet it’s below that.
And forget about legs.
I’m thinking stumps.
See my reply #29.
There aren’t that many idiots.
I’m now taking an online course on Homer’s Odyssey, offered by Hillsdale College.
It is bringing back my memories of reading a good English translation of that epic for a Humanities class when I was a freshman at MIT.
I have no intention of seeing a film that casts a black woman as Helen of Troy! If the filmmakers had any intention at all of making an excellent presentation of “the Odyssey”, they would not pull a stunt like that!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_of_Troy
“I didn’t realize movies go to streaming so quickly after theatrical release nowadays.”
There’s more. A massive wave of Hollywood “offshoring” has occurred in recent years, with nearly half of all major U.S. series and films being shot abroad. Last year, 45% of all U.S. films and scripted television shows were shot internationally, up from about 33% in 2022 for cost savings and other needs.
Driven by skyrocketing California production costs, ballooning budgets, and lucrative tax incentives, studios are increasingly setting up cameras in foreign hubs like the U.K., Canada, and Eastern Europe rather than the United States.The shift largely comes down to the bottom line: producers can save heavily on labor, production overhead, and healthcare premiums by shooting overseas, even when those stories are meant to mimic U.S. settings. These international productions are then primarily destined to be “sent” back into the U.S. for domestic consumption and global distribution.
However, this exodus of American jobs has sparked significant domestic tension. The U.S. industry has recorded historic downturns in local California and New York production activity, which has led to intense industry debates. To curb this trend, American film unions have been lobbying Congress for domestic tax incentives. The issue is further complicated by trade dynamics; for instance, there was a proposal for tariffs on internationally produced films, though entertainment executives have warned such measures would drastically disrupt Hollywood’s modern global business model.
wy69
Ellen Page plays Sinon, not Achilles.
The character of Sinon is not actually present or described in Homer’s original epic poems, The Odyssey or The Iliad.
Virgil created this character and wrote about him in the Aenid, which was done 800+ years after the epic Odyssey was composed by Homer
It’s at $124.5 mm domestic.
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