Director Christopher Nolan's latest epic, The Odyssey, opens in theaters on Friday after months of pent-up anticipation, with a record undisclosed number of tickets already sold worldwide.
The question on the mind of executives in Hollywood is will the film, distributed by Comcast's Universal Studios, match Nolan's other recent blockbusters in sales and impact.
Nolan has assembled a huge cast of A-listers in the retelling of Homer's Odyssey, about the legendary Trojan War hero's treacherous journey to return to his wife and son in Ithaca. Here are five things for moviegoers to know.
Why are people talking about this movie so much?
"The buzz is extraordinary," said Stephen Galloway, dean of the Dodge College of Film and Media Arts at Chapman University, and former executive editor of The Hollywood Reporter. "I've spoken to students who can't get tickets."
"There's no question they're going to have a huge hit on their hands. The big question is: Will it beat Oppenheimer?" he said, referring to Nolan's 2023 biographical drama about physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, "the father of the atomic bomb," which grossed more than $975.7 million worldwide.
He said The Odyssey might fare better than Oppenheimer because its subject is more family friendly, and that its success would confirm Nolan's reputation as one of the world's biggest filmmakers.
Hollywood's box office sales in the U.S. are an estimated $5.15 billion this year through July 12, up 10.7% from the same point last year, and on pace to surpass 2023 as the best year for moviegoing since 2019, according to Rentrak.
Is The Odyssey expected to sell out theaters this weekend?
Fans have been snapping up IMAX's Odyssey tickets ever since some theaters put them on sale a year ago, and analysts expect the movie's performance to more than compensate for the lukewarm openings of other summer films, such as Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu and Moana earlier this month.
That said, tickets are still available, especially on non-IMAX screens. While filmed with IMAX cameras, it's being shown on standard and premium theater screens, too.
The movie will open in about 4,000 theaters in the U.S. and Canada, as well as in IMAX theaters worldwide. In some locations in London, Prague, and Melbourne, some showings have already or almost sold out. Estimates for how well it will do this weekend range from $100 million to $125 million in domestic box office.
That would make it the third largest domestic debut this year, behind Walt Disney's Toy Story 5, which opened June 19 and sold $159.7 million its first weekend, and Universal's The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, which opened April 1 and sold $131.7 million its first weekend, according to Rentrak.
It could gross another $110 million or so internationally, adding up to a $200 million global weekend, according to some projections.
The Odyssey is especially important for IMAX Corp., which said in April that it expects a record $1.4 billion in global box office sales this year, smashing last year's $1.28 billion. IMAX cited this year's "strong, diverse incoming slate" including The Odyssey, Denis Villeneuve's Dune: Part Three, and Greta Gerwig's Narnia, among "14 Filmed for IMAX releases." IMAX reports second-quarter earnings on July 23.
How much did the film cost to make? And why was it so expensive?
The Odyssey, produced for $250 million, is the first film shot entirely on IMAX cameras. Promotional posters note "Every frame [is] in IMAX 70mm." It was filmed in six countries, including Morocco, Greece, and Iceland, even during extreme weather conditions. Matt Damon, who plays Odysseus, called it "without question the hardest film, the most challenging, that I've ever done."
"The key factor for this film is the long-term playability that will be the secret sauce that will give the film its shot at box office greatness," Rentrak's head of marketplace trends Paul Dergarabedian said. "Never ever underestimate Christopher Nolan. He is a brand unto himself and a draw with just his name on the marquee."
In addition to Damon, other celebrities starring in the film include Anne Hathaway, Zendaya, Tom Holland, Robert Pattinson, Charlize Theron, and John Bernthal.
Eric Handler, a senior research analyst with Roth, told Barron's that Nolan's movies have strong staying power, "with tie ratios averaging roughly 4x opening weekend results compared with an overall industry tie-ratio of approximately 3x." The tie ratio refers to how much revenue a film ultimately earns in domestic ticket sales relative to its opening-weekend numbers. If Handler's prediction holds, like Nolan's previous movies Interstellar, Dunkirk, and Oppenheimer, The Odyssey could ultimately quadruple whatever it rakes in this weekend.
Nolan's 12 movies since 1999, including The Dark Knight trilogy, Oppenheimer, Inception, Dunkirk, and Interstellar, have collectively grossed more than $2.4 billion at the domestic box office, and more than $6 billion worldwide, according to Rentrak.
What's the controversy some people are big mad about?
Critics and conservative commentators, including Elon Musk and Matt Walsh, have attacked Nolan for casting the Oscar-winning Kenyan-Mexican actress Lupita Nyong'o to play both Helen of Troy and her sister, Clytemnestra; the model-actress Zendaya as Athena; transgender actor Elliot Page as the Greek warrior Sinon; and black rapper-singer-songwriter Travis Scott as the poet Demodocus.
Naysayers have also skewered the actors' American accents, the dialogue for being too contemporary, the Greek warship fashioned from a Viking ship, and the cast as not having enough Greek representation. Nolan has dismissed the backlash as "irrelevant," and Nyong'o told Elle magazine "This is a mythological story," and that the cast is "representative of the world."
Galloway said that although he, too, had expected the characters to speak with upper-class British accents, their American accents won't matter to international audiences who will see the movie dubbed in their own languages.
What else do I need to know?
Unlike the slate of recent family-friendly films, The Odyssey is rated R, for "violence and some language," and runs nearly three hours long, not including previews.
The fact that the story is set thousands of years ago may make it harder for companies like McDonald's to offer promotional tie-ins, Galloway said. "Maybe there's some ancient Greek yogurt or something," he said.
Write to Janet H. Cho at janet.cho@dowjones.com
This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
July 15, 2026 13:11 ET (17:11 GMT)
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