‘The Odyssey’ Backlash Collapses as Christopher Nolan’s Epic Smashes Box Office Records
Christopher Nolan has spent the years since ‘Oppenheimer’ building toward his most ambitious project yet, an adaptation of Homer’s ancient Greek epic that promised to test just how far audiences would follow him outside his usual genre territory. Long before a single frame reached theaters, the film had already become one of the most talked-about releases of the year.
Much of that conversation turned hostile in the months leading up to release, as casting announcements for ‘The Odyssey’ sparked heated debate online.
Critics zeroed in on choices like Elliot Page playing the warrior Sinon and rapper Travis Scott appearing as a bard, with some commentators labeling the film woke and calling for a boycott over its diverse cast and modern touches.
According to WIRED, that backlash ultimately failed tremendously once the film actually reached audiences. Despite months of online outrage over casting, dialogue, and other creative choices, the boycott effort had little visible effect on ticket sales or reception once ‘The Odyssey’ opened in theaters.
The numbers back that up in dramatic fashion. Nolan’s film opened to more than 124 million dollars domestically from just under 4,000 theaters, marking his biggest domestic debut since ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ and the third largest opening of the year so far. Combined with its international haul, the film’s worldwide opening topped 264 million dollars, surpassing Nolan’s previous global launches for ‘The Dark Knight Rises,’ ‘The Dark Knight,’ and ‘Oppenheimer.’
Premium format demand told a similar story throughout the lead-up to release. IMAX 70mm screenings sold out well in advance, with resale tickets for some showings reportedly climbing as high as 1,000 dollars. Reports described packed auditoriums throughout the opening weekend, with some moviegoers traveling significant distances just to catch a coveted large-format screening.
Critical response mirrored that enthusiasm, with the film holding a 96 percent critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes. That combination of strong reviews and record-breaking ticket sales stands in sharp contrast to the tone of the pre-release discourse, which had focused heavily on the film’s casting choices and modernized approach to a 3,000 year old story.
Nolan addressed some of that criticism directly in the lead-up to release, including his decision to cast Travis Scott as a bard. Speaking to Time, Nolan explained that he wanted the casting to nod toward the idea that the story had originally been handed down as oral poetry, something he compared directly to rap.
The backlash echoed a similar controversy that surrounded Emily Wilson’s celebrated 2017 translation of the poem, which some online critics had also branded with the same woke label years earlier. Wilson’s translation informed some of Nolan’s research while writing the script, tying the film’s reception back to that earlier debate over how classic texts should be interpreted for modern audiences.
With the film continuing to play in theaters and its box office total still climbing, ‘The Odyssey’ now stands as one of the clearest examples in recent memory of a high-profile boycott campaign failing to slow a film’s commercial momentum. The gap between online outrage and actual audience turnout has become one of the more notable storylines of the film’s release.
Do you think the backlash against 'The Odyssey' had any impact on its success?
Have something to add? Let us know in the comments!
