Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is hurtling past massive domestic box-office milestones, set to outpace Oppenheimer in just 13 days while pulling in a massive $90 million second weekend in theaters nationwide. The Universal blockbuster is dominating ticket sales, even as translator Emily Wilson issues a scathing review.
It took Christopher Nolan’s multi-Oscar-winning 2023 picture Oppenheimer 595 days to final at just over $330M stateside. The director’s latest feature take on Homer’s epic poem is taking just 13 days to outstrip that result, according to recent trade figures.
Box Office Momentum and Worldwide Trajectory
The feature has not eased up at the ticket counter. Its second Monday charted $14.7M, with Tuesday looking like $16M+, bringing its running total to $320.1M stateside. By the end of Wednesday, The Odyssey is expected to cross $330M+ on its 13th day of release. This milestone not only bests Oppenheimer but establishes the film as Nolan’s third-highest-grossing movie at the domestic box office, trailing only The Dark Knight at $534.9M and The Dark Knight Rises at $448.1M.
Globally, the scale is equally staggering. The movie’s total haul stands at $303 million worldwide from just under one week of wide release following its July 16 debut, with another $15M to $20M expected as Wednesday figures land. That performance outpaces Oppenheimer, which earned $230 million in its first week, and beats the $260 million first-week haul posted by 2008’s The Dark Knight. Industry data suggests that if current momentum holds, the film could gross over a billion dollars and potentially out-earn both Oppenheimer and The Dark Knight to become Nolan’s highest-earning feature.
International Success Across the Atlantic
The domestic rush is mirrored abroad. In the UK and Ireland, The Odyssey sailed past £35m after just 10 days in cinemas, following an exceptional second weekend hold. Universal reported that the film added £11.9m, dropping just 5% from its opening weekend to score the biggest second weekend of the year to date in the territory.
Accounting for 66% of the total UK-Ireland box office for its frame, the film is tracking ahead of all previous Nolan titles at the same stage. Oppenheimer sat at £27.7m at this stage before eventually finishing at £59.8m as the director’s highest-grossing title in the region. The new adaptation has already surpassed the lifetime totals of seven of Nolan’s 12 previous feature films, including Interstellar at £21.8m, while IMAX screenings accounted for a sizeable 21% of its cumulative gross to date.
Translator Emily Wilson’s Scathing Critique
Despite the box-office triumph and glowing audience reception—including an A
CinemaScore during opening weekend—the film has faced sharp intellectual pushback. Christopher Nolan frequently cited classical scholar Emily Wilson’s 2017 translation of the epic poem as a key influence during his press tour, noting that he used her opening line, Tell me about a complicated man,
as a guide for shaping Matt Damon’s Odysseus.
Wilson, a professor of classical studies at the University of Pennsylvania, did not return the favor. In a negative review published in the London Review of Books, Wilson criticized Nolan’s adaptation for lacking psychological, emotional, political, and ethical depth.
“I had hoped that Nolan’s affinity with these Homeric themes might push him to new creative heights, and enable him to conjure more believable characters. But ‘The Odyssey’ features his usual combination of grandiosity and superficiality … the film’s vision is too confused, its characters too underdeveloped, to deliver what it half-promises in terms of big ideas – although it is very good at conveying big bangs and big giants.”
Emily Wilson, Translator and Professor of Classical Studies
Wilson further lambasted the project’s script, writing that I would be ashamed to have written any part of this script.
While acknowledging in a Sunday Times interview that the film’s release remains an event to celebrate because it drives audiences back to cinemas, sends translations flying off shelves, and might convince college administrators not to cut literature departments, her written review dismissed the narrative structure as gimmicky and the writing as abysmal.
Broader Theater Landscape and Future Challenges
The wider box-office ecosystem shows diverse performances alongside Nolan’s juggernaut. In the UK, LD Entertainment’s Broadway-capture film Hadestown held the No. 2 spot on Monday with $2.2M, extending its run into a second weekend across 1,560 locations after originally scheduling only a five-day engagement.
Meanwhile, the looming arrival of Sony’s Spider-Man: Brand New Day on July 30 presents the next major hurdle for The Odyssey. With pre-sale records pointing to a North American opening around $200M, Odyssey’s third weekend looks to ease by 50% at most, or $45M. Featuring The Odyssey star Tom Holland returning as the web-slinger, the upcoming release will test how well the Homeric epic maintains momentum against one of the year’s most anticipated blockbuster arrivals.
Worth a look
