Weekend Box Office: The Odyssey Scores Biggest Live-Action Opening of the Year
At $124.5 million, Christopher Nolan's epic also earned the third-biggest debut of his career and the fourth highest ever for an R-rated film.
The Odyssey is often considered one of the foundations of modern-day storytelling. The roughly 3,000-year-old hero’s journey has been told in all forms from its original text to other variations where Matt Damon has to get home. The numbers for The Odyssey also tell a story and a very good one for Christopher Nolan and Universal.
King of the Crop: The Odyssey Scores Biggest Live-Action Opening of the Year
Tickets have been on sale for a full year for the latest film from Christopher Nolan. It broke an IMAX record in the UK a full month before its release. The Odyssey is finally here. All 172 minutes of it. Critics are on board with 95% approval on the Tomatometer, the highest of Nolan’s career and the sixth film at 90% or higher, joining Memento, Insomnia, The Dark Knight, Dunkirk, and Oppenheimer. Audiences appear to be enthralled as well, given social media reactions, and it all added up to a $124.5 million opening weekend.
That is the biggest opening for a live-action film this year, behind only The Super Mario Galaxy Movie and Toy Story 5 overall. It is the fourth-highest R-rated opening ever, besting Stephen King’s It, which opened to $123.4 million. The top three are all Deadpool movies, and Odyssey came in just a million behind Deadpool 2’s $125.5 million. It is the third-biggest opening of Nolan’s career after the second and third Batman films. One aspect where Nolan’s films have certainly succeeded has been pure word of mouth. Since 2002 and his first wide release of Insomnia, only one of his films has not managed to gross three times its opening weekend. That was The Dark Knight Rises, his biggest opening ever at $160.8 million, and it still put up a very respectable 2.78 multiple. Batman Begins and Inception multiplied over four times their openings.
Since that TDKR multiple, Nolan’s last four multiples ranged from Dunkirk’s 3.72 to Oppenheimer’s 3.9986. That includes a 3.88 for the pandemic release of Tenet. Audiences were risking Covid to see Nolan. Universal would love to see that kind of word of mouth. Spider-Man: Brand New Day drops in two weeks. The Odyssey has zero competition next week. What will that drop look like? Apart from big-opening Rises and pandemic-era Tenet, the only other 50% drops Nolan has had were his second-biggest opening ever in The Dark Knight, which still had a mere 52.5% fall, the same number as Insomnia. Can The Odyssey keep its drop below 50%? Worldwide the $250 million production is over $264 million. Tenet is the only Nolan film not to break half a billion across the globe since The Dark Knight and it still has already done more than Supergirl and Masters of the Universe combined this summer.
Tales of the Top 10: No Major Changes, but Obsession Becomes Just the Second Film to Spend 10 Weeks in the Top 10
After its shockingly lackluster opening last weekend, Disney’s live-action Moana is down 56% to $19 million in weekend two. That has it at $82 million after 10 days. Last summer’s Lilo & Stitch was already at $278 million. Tim Burton’s Dumbo, on the other hand, was at $76.2 million after just an $18.2 million second weekend. So Moana is at least on a north-of-Dumbo path. But a final domestic number between $120-130 million is not where anyone expected this one to be. No word on if Disney is calling James Gunn to correct the path after audiences don’t show up for a film with Dwayne Johnson. We jest a bit, given he has carried 10 films to $100 million prior to Moana as a headliner, but factor in the budgets, and this is going to be the sixth-straight loser for Johnson (if we include the pandemic release of Jungle Cruise). Worldwide the film is at just $178.5 million.
Minions & Monsters is in its third weekend, dropping just 30% to $14.8 million. Domestically it is at $137.5 million. That is about $24 million below where the original Despicable Me was after 17 days and much less than its $23.6 million weekend three. Yet it is still on a path that could get it closer to $200 million than anyone imagined after its disappointing opening. Maybe not right up against it, but respectfully close. At present, M&Ms numbers are cozying up to those of Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian ($14.6 million third weekend, $127.3 million in 17 days). That film finished over $177 million. With some decent family drops, M&M could find itself outpacing that, especially with nothing new for families until Paw Patrol on Aug. 14. Not that it needs its domestic total for success. We already established it was there last weekend, and now it is over $357 million worldwide on a budget of only $85 million.
We are a full month in on Toy Story 5, and it has officially become the highest-grossing domestic release of 2026. It is still in the top five, grossing $14.8 million in weekend five. The film is in the top 25 of all films after 31 days of release, ranking 23rd with $430.9 million, ahead of Avengers: Age of Ultron ($427.5 million) and well ahead of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever ($409.9 million) and The Dark Knight Rises ($409.7 million). Toy Story 5′s fifth weekend is nicely ahead of Ultron ($11.4 million) and Wakanda ($11.2 million) and is also ahead of the $13.7 million fifth weekends of A Minecraft Movie and 2017’s live-action Beauty and the Beast. We have to up those estimates, now that it is looking to surpass $475 million domestic. Better yet, the film is just shy of hitting a billion with $958 million across the world.
Evil Dead Burn took a 63.6% tumble from its somewhat disappointing opening last week — disappointing in that some tracking services overinflated its potential by more than double. Another $5 million in its second weekend brings its 10-day domestic total to $24.1 million. The film is behind the pace of Orphan back in 2009, so $40 million is well off the table. But it is already at $51 million worldwide, and that is certainly more than enough to not regret getting Evil Dead Wrath ready for 2028.
Olivia Wilde’s The Invite finally got its wide launch last week after two weeks of limited release. This week it added 500 theaters (2,110 total) and $3.9 million to its gross. Its total now stands at $15 million. This is a notable number when looking at the highest-grossing films to premiere at Sundance (some entering with distribution) since the pandemic:
Talk To Me ($48.2 million), Together ($21.2 million), The Invite ($15.0 million), Past Lives ($11.3 million), Infinity Pool ($10.6 million), Thelma ($8.9 million), A Real Pain ($8.34 million), Love Lies Bleeding ($8.33 million), The Night House ($7.1 million), Presence ($6.9 million), Promising Young Woman ($6.4 million), I Saw the TV Glow ($4.94 million), Zola ($4.84 million), In a Violent Nature ($4.22 million)
Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass is not going to make that list after it fell 89% in its second week, making just $100,000 for a total of $1.3 million. Sony Classics should have put a little more room between that and The Invite. Back to the above list, though: It is nice to see a comedy get through the fog again after a pickup at a major film festival, horror breakouts notwithstanding. Speaking of which…
Curry Barker’s Obsession hit physical media shelves this past Tuesday, and it is still in the top 10 earning money in theaters. It became the second film this year after Project Hail Mary to spend 10 weeks in the top 10. Zootopia 2 was the last film to spend more than that (14 weeks to be precise). Another $2.5 million brings Obsession’s domestic total over $258 million. Globally it is over $430 million. Steven Spielberg loved Obsession, and he had a movie out this summer too. Disclosure Day made $1.4 million in its sixth weekend to bring its domestic total to $114.5 million. That makes it the 17th-highest grossing film on Spielberg’s resume. $114.7 million. 17th. Who else can boast that? That said, Curry Barker can now boast that his highest-grossing film did more domestically than Spielberg’s 17th-best domestic release has grossed worldwide ($235+ million). The $200 million watch for Backrooms also continues as it stands now with $195.9 million domestic and over $384 million worldwide.
Last week we suggested Angel Studios’ Young Washington could be headed for $50 million. This week it crossed $40 million after grossing another $3.6 million in its third weekend. It is already their fourth-highest grossing domestic release. Its numbers are in line with Oliver Stone’s Savages, which had a $3.39 million third weekend and $40.05 million after 17 days. It ended up with $47.3 million. So maybe not quite $50 million for our first President before he became our first President.
Maybe the one silver lining in getting no major wide releases next week is that it could keep Supergirl in the top 10. Maybe. If not, it would leave the list after four weeks, joining Superman Returns, Green Lantern, and Shazam! Fury of the Gods from the DC pages in the past 40 years. (The Flash and Joker: Folie a Deux spent only three weeks there.) Another $1.5 million brings its 24-day total to just $69.9 million and a global total of just $120 million. This could mathematically add up to the biggest bomb from DC in any cinematic incarnation, just two movies into the new DCU. Good luck, Clayface.
On The Vine: Two Small Films and a Re-Release Jump Into the Wake of The Odyssey
Hollywood mostly cleared the decks in the wake of The Odyssey. But if you know where to look you can see Her Private Hell, the latest from director Nicolas Winding Refn with Sophie Thatcher. It only has a 43% with critics. Look out for showings of Michael Mann’s restored cut of his 1986 thriller Manhunter with William Petersen. IFC also has the dialogue-free revenge film, Motor City, with Reacher’s Alan Ritchson and a 70% from critics.
Full List of Box Office Results: July 17-19
- The Odyssey – $124.5 million ($124.5 million total)
- Moana – $19.0 million ($82.0 million total)
- Minions & Monsters – $14.8 million ($137.5 million total)
- Toy Story 5 – $14.8 million ($430.9 million total)
- Evil Dead Burn – $5.0 million ($24.1 million total)
- The Invite – $3.9 million ($15.0 million total)
- Young Washington – $3.6 million ($41.0 million total)
- Obsession – $2.5 million ($258.4 million total)
- Supergirl – $1.5 million ($69.9 million total)
- Disclosure Day – $1.4 million ($114.7 million total)
Erik Childress can be heard each week evaluating box office on Business First AM with Angela Miles and his Movie Madness Podcast. [box office figures via Box Office Mojo]
Thumbnail image by ©Universal Pictures
