‘The Odyssey’ Is About to Beat ‘Furious 7’ and Become Universal’s Second-Biggest Movie Ever

Christopher Nolan hadn’t cracked the billion-dollar club since 2012’s ‘The Dark Knight Rises,’ a fourteen-year gap that made his return to that rarefied territory feel like genuine news when it finally happened this summer. For a filmmaker known for adult-skewing, formally ambitious blockbusters, hitting that number again with a three-hour adaptation of a nearly 3,000-year-old poem was never a guaranteed outcome.

‘The Odyssey,’ Nolan’s sword-and-sandal epic starring Matt Damon as the Greek king Odysseus alongside Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Robert Pattinson, Lupita Nyong’o, Zendaya, and Charlize Theron, has spent its theatrical run defying those odds. Shot entirely with IMAX film cameras, a first for a feature film, the movie has become a genuine phenomenon built on strong holds and outsized demand for premium large-format screenings.

Now, that momentum is about to deliver its biggest milestone yet. ‘The Odyssey’ is projected to cross the $1.5 billion mark at the global box office this coming weekend, a total that would push it past ‘Furious 7’s’ $1.51 billion haul and make it Universal’s second-biggest movie of all time, trailing only ‘Jurassic World.’

The film’s ascent has already rewritten Nolan’s personal box office history several times over. ‘The Odyssey’ surpassed ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ to become Nolan’s highest-grossing release ever, and it has also become the highest-grossing R-rated movie of all time, overtaking ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ along the way. Combined with his other work, Nolan’s filmography has now crossed $7 billion at the worldwide box office.

Universal has leaned into the film’s international appeal as a key driver of its success. Veronika Kwan Vandenberg, the studio’s president of international distribution, said in comments reported by Variety that Nolan’s global following made him uniquely suited to adapt Homer’s ancient poem, calling the film a global epic that has resonated with audiences through its massive scope and uncompromising vision.

Much of the film’s staying power comes down to its performance in IMAX, where it has already become the format’s highest-grossing release ever, surpassing even ‘Avatar.’ That success has been amplified by the film’s ongoing international rollout, with releases in South Korea, China, and Japan continuing to add fresh box office fuel even weeks after its initial run began.

‘The Odyssey’ is just one of five films to cross the billion-dollar mark in 2026, joining ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day,’ ‘Toy Story 5,’ ‘Michael,’ and ‘The Super Mario Galaxy Movie’ on that list. It currently sits as the second-highest-grossing movie of the year behind ‘Brand New Day,’ though its steady climb toward $1.5 billion keeps that gap from widening too dramatically.

For Universal, the film’s success adds to what’s already been a record-breaking year, with the studio becoming the first to cross $4 billion worldwide in 2026. Landing two films, ‘The Odyssey’ and ‘Brand New Day,’ both past the billion-dollar threshold in the same year is a rare feat that speaks to just how strong this particular theatrical stretch has been for the industry as a whole.

With more international markets still ahead and Imax screens reportedly selling out in major cities through October, ‘The Odyssey’ shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon.

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