Universal Pictures and Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is projected to command an $84.5 million second weekend at the domestic box office, marking a 32% dip. Following a global opening of $264 million worldwide, the Homer adaptation continues breaking box-office records while launching its awards-season campaign.
The momentum behind Universal Pictures and Christopher Nolan’s cinematic adaptation of Homer’s epic poem shows zero signs of fading. After shattering expectations during its debut, the blockbuster is headed for an $84.5 million second frame in North America, tracking toward the best second-weekend gross a Christopher Nolan film has ever seen. If that estimate holds, it will top his previous second-weekend high, for 2008’s The Dark Knight ($75.1M). Some rivals today believe the movie can even hit $90M. Among R-rated movies, The Odyssey is currently bound for the second-best second weekend ever behind Deadpool & Wolverine‘s $96.8M in 2024.
Box Office Dominance and Historic Records
The theater count for The Odyssey moves to 3,942, up by 23, with a second-frame dip of 32%. Pic’s second Friday is $26M. In second place this weekend will be Disney’s Moana with a third Friday of $3M, a third weekend around $10M, -44%, at 4,015 sites. That will get the Dwayne Johnson live-action take of the 2016 animated pic across the century mark by end of Sunday. Third is Disney/Pixar’s sixth weekend of Toy Story 5 with around $9.4M at 3,375, -31%, and a running cume of $447.9M by Sunday. Today is looking like $2.8M. Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of Homer’s epic poem earned $123.5 million in domestic ticket sales.
The Large-Format Factor and Cinephile Appeal
The film is the first feature shot entirely on Imax cameras.
Oscar Buzz and Early Academy Screenings
The Oscar race for 2027 seems to have found its center of gravity, and its front-runner that will be shepherded under the Universal banner. Christopher Nolan‘s “The Odyssey,” the Homer adaptation that shattered the director’s own global opening record with $264 million worldwide, began its formal courtship of Academy voters this week with a series of member screenings on both coasts and abroad. If the early temperature reading is correct, and the buzz holds, the film enters the fall corridor as the one everybody else has to beat. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences hosted its first members screening on Saturday at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Los Angeles, presented in 70mm. The roughly 1,000-seat house was near capacity, an early tell in a season where turnout becomes its own form of polling. The U.K. membership, which has become an instrumental voting bloc as AMPAS has gone more international, followed on Monday at the Soho Hotel. And for members in New York City, they enjoyed the journey back to Ithaca on Wednesday in 35mm.
What was the song of the sirens like?
When it comes to Oscar voters, like Odysseus, the answer is: All the things you wanted to be.
Industry Implications and What Comes Next
“The Odyssey” is an ancient Greek epic poem that tells the story of Odysseus, the king of Ithaca who spent 10 years fighting the Trojan War only to spend another 10 years trying to return home. That it takes him a decade to travel the roughly 560 nautical miles from Troy to Ithaca is not because of primitive seafaring technology (voyage records in ancient literature indicate that such a trip would have taken about a week, possibly up to two weeks under unfavorable winds). Throughout Homer’s tale, Odysseus is repeatedly thwarted by divine wrath, nature and human fallibility. For those rusty on the classics, a brief refresher: On the journey to Ithaca, Odysseus’ crew eats fruit that makes them forget their goal of returning home. They get trapped in a cave with a one-eyed, man-eating Cyclops. When they come tantalizingly close to home, they are blown off course again. They encounter more man-eating monsters. Odysseus’ men get turned into pigs. Odysseus travels to the underworld and has to perform a blood sacrifice. Then there are the Sirens and the sea monsters Scylla and Charybdis. All of Odysseus’ men are killed by the end.
