Christopher Nolan Just Had His Biggest Opening Day Ever with ‘The Odyssey’, and It Wasn’t Even in the US

Christopher Nolan’s box office dominance isn’t just an American story this week. While US audiences were still lining up for Thursday previews, ‘The Odyssey’ had already quietly set a new career milestone for the director thousands of miles away, and the numbers coming out of Europe are turning heads just as much as the domestic figures.

That milestone belongs to Italy, where the film opened a full day ahead of its US release. Nolan’s ‘Odissea’, distributed by Universal, closed its first twenty-four hours in Italian theaters with €2,181,715 ($2.50 million) and 273,068 admissions, a debut that immediately reshaped what had otherwise been a dead summer season for Italian cinema. That single day outdrew what many films manage across multiple weeks of release.

The real headline is how that number stacks up against Nolan’s own history in the country. The result topped the €2,050,228 ($2.35 million) earned by ‘Oppenheimer’ on its opening day, marking the best debut ever for a Nolan film in Italy. It’s also worth noting that ‘Oppenheimer’ opened there on a smaller footprint of 473 cinemas back in August 2023, while ‘Odissea’ launched across 551 locations with an average of €3,960 ($4,534) per venue.

Only one 2026 release managed to top Nolan’s number. ‘The Devil Wears Prada 2’ still holds the year’s best opening day in Italy with €2,718,402, ($3.11 million) putting ‘Odissea’ in second place for the year so far but still ahead of comparisons like ‘Barbie’, which opened to €2,160,957 ($2.47 million) on its own Thursday release back in 2023. Format breakdowns for the Italian debut show the film earned €87,112 ($99,743) in IMAX, €52,801 ($60,457) in 70mm screenings, and €147,007 ($168,323) from showings in its original English language track.

Nothing else in the Italian marketplace came remotely close on the same day. Second place belonged to ‘Minions & Monsters’ with just €100,286 ($114,827), while ‘Toy Story 5’ trailed further behind with €39,299 ($45,007) despite having a much larger overall haul since its June 18 release. Industry trackers at MeteoCinema have projected ‘Odissea’ could ultimately reach a total of €25.9 million ($29.66 million) in Italy, a figure that would place it among the country’s biggest releases of the year.

With the US previews also landing among the best of the year, Nolan’s mythological epic is proving that its appeal isn’t limited to any single market. Between a record-breaking Italian debut and a domestic preview haul chasing some of the biggest R-rated openings in history, ‘The Odyssey’ is shaping up to be less a single country’s box office story and more a genuinely global one.

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