Christopher Nolan and Universal opening weekend
Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” gets off to an epic start.
Universal The film adaptation earned an estimated $124.5 million in its opening weekend as audiences flocked to premium large-format releases. IMAX theaters.
“Death, taxes, and Christopher Nolan,” said Shawn Robbins, director of analytics at Fandango and founder of Box Office Theory. “He reinvented the superhero genre, captured the zeitgeist with many thought-provoking originals, and turned a three-hour biopic into a global blockbuster. He did it again by retelling a 2,700-year-old poem that served as the foundation of what we consider modern storytelling.”
IMAX reported estimated ticket sales of approximately $30 million for the weekend; this represents approximately 24% of domestic opening sales.
“The Odyssey” earned $139.6 million internationally, bringing its global weekend total to $264.1 million. IMAX contributed approximately $22 million, or 15%, to the film’s international release. The film has not yet been released in China, Japan and South Korea.
“The Odyssey” had Nolan’s third-best opening weekend domestically and his highest global opening, according to data from Rentrak.
According to EntTelligence’s data, approximately 7.5 million tickets were sold for the film domestically. Premium large format screenings accounted for 45% of tickets sold and cost an average of $19 per piece. The highly acclaimed 70mm screenings accounted for 5% of all tickets sold over the weekend and averaged $22.50.
“This was always going to be a great movie,” IMAX CEO Rich Gelfond told CNBC. “It had a great cast, a great director, and the locations it was shot in. But I think what IMAX did was help transform it from a great movie to a huge worldwide cultural event.”
“Odyssey” is expected to continue attracting the attention of moviegoers in the coming weeks. It has limited direct competition until its launch. sony And Marvel’s “Spider-Man: All-New Day” will be released on July 31 and will have theatrical exclusivity in IMAX theaters for the next three weeks.
In addition, we cannot help but mention that the tickets for “The Odyssey”, some of which have been on sale since July 2025, have been sold out in movie theaters showing 70 mm screenings of the film. A similar phenomenon was seen in 2023, when Nolan released the Oscar-winning biopic “Oppenheimer.”
The director’s films have become event cinema, especially because Nolan uses the latest film equipment and techniques to capture the images. For “The Odyssey” he used IMAX-branded cameras and favored practical set locations and effects over computer-generated imagery. The results are cinematic spectacles that demand to be seen on the biggest screens with the best sound systems.
“Prime showing times, particularly in IMAX, are selling out weeks ahead of Nolan’s release, ensuring a long box office runway for ‘The Odyssey’ as positive word of mouth spreads,” Robbins said. “In many cases, fans drive for hours to find auditoriums that present the film as closely as possible to what Nolan intended.”
IMAX’s Gelfond stated that to meet demand, 42 IMAX locations held screenings between midnight and 3 a.m. on the weekend. Gelfond said that the company extended the screening of the film in cinemas until the fifth week, and that ticket sales for some screenings have already sold out.
“This isn’t just the old moviegoers who come to movies like ‘The Odyssey’ and ‘Oppenheimer,'” Robbins said. “Nolan has a rare appeal among young millennials and Gen Z crowds that is critical to the continued evolution of the theater industry.”
Half of the moviegoers were between the ages of 18 and 34; It’s a coveted target demographic that theaters have been trying to recapture since the pandemic.
“Christopher Nolan is one of a handful of film directors whose name on the sign is a guarantee of box office success,” said Paul Dergarabedian, head of market trends at Rentrak. “[His] his work has endeared him to film fans and film buffs around the world. “He’s truly in a class of his own.”
Disclosure: Versant Media is the parent company of CNBC and Fandango.
