THE SPIN BEGINS: "'The Odyssey' seizes $124M opening in BOX OFFICE TRIUMPH."

It's only the THIRD biggest opening of the year, behind "Toy Story 5" and "The Super Mario Galaxy Movie."

They don't tell you it likely needs around $800 million worldwide just to break even.

And the studio typically keeps only about 50–55% of the domestic gate - and less internationally.

And the $139.6 million from 73 international markets is absolutely DISASTROUS for the great Nolan when you consider that his own country, United Kingdom/Ireland, only spent $17.4M...

And finally, they don't tell you that "Odyssey" only has one more CLEAR weekend before "Spider-Man" webs up the box office.

It’s two people out of many. One of them isn’t even noticed in the movie.

I just looked at Monday’s grosses and Odyssey took in $18.7 million, the best Monday of any movie in 2026.

Out of curiosity, I just checked the screen time of Elliot Page, the transgender gal/dude. He/She is seen for 5 mins and 30 seconds.

The black chick has about 4 minutes of screen time as Helen of Troy - at least the gender is correct. Apparently, she has two roles. The other role is 2 more minutes of screen time. Helen of Troy portion is the role causing people to lose sleep.

These are not lead roles and someone on this thread who has seen the movie, said they didn’t even notice the transgender actor.

The character screen times from most to least are listed below:

Odysseus (Matt Damon): 95% screen time (~164 minutes)
Telemachus (Tom Holland): 50% screen time (~86 minutes)
Penelope (Anne Hathaway): 40% screen time (~69 minutes)
Antinous (Robert Pattinson): 30% screen time (~55 minutes)
Eumaeus (John Leguizamo): 30% screen time (~52 minutes)
Calypso (Charlize Theron): 12% screen time (~20 minutes)
Circe (Samantha Morton): 6% screen time (~10 minutes)
Eurylochus (Himesh Patel): 5% screen time (~9 minutes)
Athena (Zendaya): 5% screen time (~8 minutes)
Elliot Page (Sinon): 3% screen time (~5 minutes)
Agamemnon (Benny Safdie): 2% screen time (~4 minutes)
Helen of Troy (Lupita Nyong’o): 2% screen time (~4 minutes)
Melantho (Mia Goth): 2% screen time (~4 minutes)

I think he did a great job. It’s a good movie, he skipped some bits, maybe tweaked some of the emotions for a different world. But over all it’s a good movie, and has enough of the story to adequately tell it, and in somebody likes it and has never read some version, there’s enough differences to still enjoy the book.

As for the hate, I think it’s 2 things:
1 - the anti-woke movement is much more belligerent and pervasive than woke ever got. I noticed that with the Spielberg remake of West Side Story. People actually being mad he cast brown people to play brown characters, like that’s the worst thing imaginable.
2 - there’s a big tendency, and this actually crosses political spectrums, that old stories should be treated like sacred urtexts and any modification in any way is wrong wrong wrong. I find these particularly laughable because, as I think you know, these stories have changed constantly. Whether it’s a “separate entity” like this movie, or “continuous entity” like it’s part of the chain to the original. It’s never really the original. We can pretend that if you find a version of The Odyssey that’s in ancient Greek and really old it’s the really original as told by Homer story. But it isn’t. I guarantee somewhere between the first time Homer (or someone from the Homeric school) told this story and the oldest known written version the story changed. Stories always change, especially when they go back to oral tradition. 30 years later, 100 years later, 200 years later somebody’s gonna look at some story beat and go “eh, I don’t like that” and tweak it. That constant change is as much a part of Western cultural history as these stories. But people get this attachment, usually to the first version of the story they read which probably isn’t the true first version, and demand it never change again.

Plus of course a lot of people just like hating Nolan. He makes weird movies that make a lot of money. And the fact that he has total freedom with getting big budgets from big studios and does basically whatever he wants really seems to annoy people.

I Agree with your assessment

“ Plus of course a lot of people just like hating Nolan. He makes weird movies that make a lot of money. And the fact that he has total freedom with getting big budgets from big studios and does basically whatever he wants really seems to annoy people.”

Do they forget capitalism and the American way here on FR?

The enjoyment of hate for the sake of hate I’ve seen in the past week is more offensive than anything Nolan has done

I also wondered if people hated this movie seeing themselves as suitors- do nothings with no training That’s got to be disturbing

So… @RottenTomatoes

3 days ago I posted my clean, spoiler-free review of The Odyssey with a 2.5/5. As of today, it still has not been posted.

I created a new account 2 hours ago. I posted a glowing fake review with a 5/5. It went public in less than an hour.

What a joke.

https://x.com/i/status/2079388472263971034

Nolan hate crosses the spectrum. I think on the conservative side it has a lot to do with he breaks their favorite complaint. Over and over here you’ll see people complain that Hollywood only does sequels and remakes and cookie cutter etc etc. And 2 thing I like to point out are:
there’s nothing new about that, movies have always been expensive to make and “safe” properties have always been preferred by the studios (also some truly remakes)
And the people who regularly make things outside that box like Wes Anderson and the Coen brothers and Nolan

But nobody likes their sacred cow being turned into steaks.

I wonder what the people hating this movie thought of Oh Brother Where Art Thou. Maybe the Coens didn’t CALL it The Odyssey they’re OK with it. But they also weren’t at all shy about where they ripped the story from.

Quite. The enjoyment of complaining about movie industry.

Well movie industry will always be with us. People have a need to go away from tasks, watch a show with no interruptions. Put a story to it and they will come

My view is Nolan will be one of the good ones who will bring the story. He’s inspiring young people very generously as well.

👊

Movie sites are notorious for this

IMDb forum which really really huge shut down after conservatives garnered even a modest maybe 25% voice there

They just couldn’t tolerate anything outside their echo chamber

That was 15 years ago minimum

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