Massive Overseas Box Office Numbers Prove ‘The Odyssey’ Is Not Done Yet

Christopher Nolan’s box office dominance has become one of the defining storylines of the summer movie season, with ‘The Odyssey‘ racking up milestone after milestone in market after market. Every new territory the film enters seems to bring another record tumbling down, and China is shaping up to be no exception.

That anticipation has been building steadily in the lead-up to the film’s mainland China debut, with limited preview screenings over the past several days already generating serious buzz among local audiences. Now, with the wide release still more than a week away, the numbers pouring in suggest something genuinely special is brewing.

Presales for ‘The Odyssey’ in China are climbing rapidly ahead of its August 14 opening day, boosted by strong word of mouth out of last weekend’s limited previews. According to detailed presale tracking, the film has already generated a three-day cume of $2.5 million for the August 8 through August 16 period, with 10 days still remaining before that window closes.

The breakdown shows $878,000 from Saturday, August 8 previews across just 805 screenings, followed by $625,000 from Sunday, August 9 previews over 736 screenings. Opening day itself, Friday, August 14, has already logged $512,000 in advance sales, with $333,000 booked for Saturday, August 15, and $192,000 for Sunday, August 16. Notably, only 15,000 screenings are currently open for booking on opening day, meaning that pacing is expected to keep climbing as more screenings become available closer to release.

Those figures don’t even include the $708,000 already grossed from limited previews held August 1 and 2, pushing the film’s total China haul past $3.2 million before its official nationwide rollout has even begun. That early momentum lines up with what industry insiders have been anticipating for weeks.

The China release is expected to give the film’s already massive global haul an extra jolt. IMAX China is preparing to dedicate the vast majority of its nearly 800-screen network to ‘The Odyssey’ when it opens, with CEO Daniel Manwaring telling Variety that audience anticipation “is going to be enormous.” Manwaring added, “I’m expecting a very large majority of our entire network, if not all of our network, that first week will be playing ‘The Odyssey.'”

Audience reception from those early previews has been notably strong, with the film earning an 8.3-star audience rating that reportedly stacks up favorably against major recent box office hits, including other blockbuster releases from this same summer season. That kind of early word of mouth is often treated as one of the most reliable predictors of how a film’s opening weekend numbers will ultimately land.

The film’s global total has already topped $727.9 million in just twelve days, and that’s without any contribution from China whatsoever. Given the scale of the IMAX rollout and the presale momentum building ahead of the wide release, industry watchers expect China to meaningfully accelerate the film’s climb toward the billion-dollar mark.

For a filmmaker whose track record in China includes strong outings for titles like ‘Oppenheimer’ and ‘Tenet,’ this presale surge suggests ‘The Odyssey’ could end up becoming Nolan’s biggest hit in the market yet.

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