Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is expected to overtake the final North American box office total of his Oscar-winning drama Oppenheimer just 13 days after opening in cinemas.
Released earlier this month, The Odyssey is Nolan’s adaptation of Homer’s ancient Greek epic, following Odysseus’s decade-long journey home to Ithaca after the Trojan War.
Matt Damon stars as the king of Ithaca, with Anne Hathaway as his wife Penelope and Tom Holland as their son Telemachus. The ensemble cast also includes Lupita Nyong’o playing Helen and Clytemnestra, Zendaya as the goddess Athena, Charlize Theron as the nymph Calypso, Robert Pattinson as the suitor Antinous, and Himesh Patel as Odysseus’ second-in-command, Eurylochus.
The Odyssey has opened to rave reviews and is expected to be a major Oscar contender, with The Independent’s Clarisse Loughrey calling it Nolan’s “best film to date” in her five-star review.
The film currently holds a 95 per cent critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes, making it the highest-rated film of Nolan’s career on the review aggregator, ahead of Memento, Batman Begins, and The Dark Knight.
The fantasy epic earned $14.7m across the US and Canada on its second Monday, and is projected to add more than $16m on Tuesday, according to Deadline. This would take the film’s domestic total to $320.1m, putting it on track to pass the $330m mark by the end of Wednesday.
Oppenheimer finished its theatrical run in North America with just over $330m after 595 days in cinemas. The biographical drama, written and directed by Nolan, starred Cillian Murphy as theoretical physicist J Robert Oppenheimer and chronicled his role in the development of the atomic bomb during the Manhattan Project.
The film also featured Emily Blunt, Matt Damon and Robert Downey Jr., and went on to win seven Academy Awards, including best picture, best director for Christopher Nolan, best actor for Murphy and best supporting actor for Downey Jr.
Released in July 2023 alongside Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, Oppenheimer went on to gross $975.8m worldwide, becoming the highest-grossing biographical film at the time before it was later overtaken by Michael.
The Odyssey opened to $123.5m in North America and $264m worldwide, marking the biggest opening weekend of Nolan’s career. Earlier this month, Forbes reported that the film had gone on to earn $303m worldwide in its first week, compared with $230m for Oppenheimer over the same period and $260m for The Dark Knight.
The film also set a new opening weekend record at London’s BFI IMAX, surpassing previous benchmarks set by Star Wars: The Last Jedi and Oppenheimer.
If the projection holds, The Odyssey will become Nolan’s third highest-grossing film in North America, behind only The Dark Knight, which earned $534.9m domestically, and The Dark Knight Rises, which took $448.1m.
The film has also already become Matt Damon’s highest-grossing leading role at the North American box office.
The box office success follows weeks of online criticism over the film’s casting, including the roles of Elliot Page and Lupita Nyong’o. Despite the backlash, The Odyssey opened to the biggest weekend of Nolan’s career and demand for premium-format screenings remained so high that some IMAX tickets were allegedly resold online for as much as £300.
The Odyssey is in theatres now.
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