‘The Odyssey’ Is Exploding Overseas, and Word of Mouth Might Push It Past Oppenheimer’s Local Record

Christopher Nolan’s box office pull has always carried extra weight in certain international markets, and Italy has long been one of the strongholds where his films tend to overperform even the most optimistic studio projections. With ‘The Odyssey’ now playing across the country, early tracking suggests this release might be building into something genuinely historic for the director locally.

That momentum started fast right out of the gate. According to Deadline, ‘The Odyssey’ opened in Italy with 2.5 million dollars on its Thursday debut, claiming the number one spot with an extraordinary 88 percent share of the entire domestic box office that day. That figure marked the biggest single-day opening of Nolan’s career in the market, Universal’s biggest ever opening day in Italy, and the biggest July opening the country has ever recorded.

Rather than fading after that initial burst, the film’s momentum has reportedly kept building. Word of mouth reactions in Italy have been described as extremely positive, with the film’s Saturday gross reaching 3.4 million dollars, an increase of more than 32 percent over an already strong Friday performance, a jump that speaks to genuinely enthusiastic audience reception rather than a front-loaded opening that fades quickly.

That kind of growth has pushed the film’s cumulative Italian total to 8.5 million dollars and roughly 894,000 admissions across its first three days of release. For context on just how significant that pace is, Nolan’s 2023 best picture winner ‘Oppenheimer’ earned 31 million dollars across its entire Italian theatrical run, a number that itself already represented a hugely successful outcome for the director in that market.

Depending on how the ongoing FIFA World Cup final affects Sunday attendance across Europe, current tracking suggests ‘The Odyssey’ could land its four day opening weekend in Italy somewhere between 11 million and 13 million dollars. That range would put the film in direct competition with ‘Oppenheimer’s 12.7 million dollar opening, long considered Nolan’s biggest overall opening total in the Italian market, despite the fact that ‘Oppenheimer’ had the benefit of a five day opening window compared to this release.

Italy is far from the only international market delivering standout numbers for the film. According to Deadline’s broader global tracking, ‘The Odyssey’ is projected to bring in 137.3 million dollars across 73 offshore markets, pushing its total worldwide opening to roughly 257.8 million dollars, the third highest global opening of the year so far and the biggest international debut of Nolan’s entire career, surpassing both ‘Oppenheimer’ and ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ on that specific measure.

With reviews continuing to praise the film’s scale and Rotten Tomatoes scores already sitting among the best of Nolan’s career, the strength coming out of Italy adds another data point to what is shaping up to be one of the definitive global box office stories of the year. Whether the film ultimately overtakes ‘Oppenheimer’s Italian opening record may come down to how much of an overlap there is between moviegoers and World Cup viewers this weekend.

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