‘The Odyssey’ Is Now Projected to Sail Past $1.7 Billion, and IMAX Alone Could Bank Half a Billion

Christopher Nolan has built his entire career on turning ambitious, adult-skewing epics into genuine box office events, but even by his own standards, this summer has been something different. What started as a bold, three-hour adaptation of one of the oldest stories in Western literature has quietly become the defining theatrical phenomenon of the year.

‘The Odyssey’ opened well above expectations back in July, and rather than following the typical front-loaded blockbuster pattern, the film has continued adding milestone after milestone throughout its theatrical run. Strong word-of-mouth has carried it deep into international markets, including a recent China debut that outperformed nearly every previous Nolan release in the region.

Now, industry trackers are projecting something genuinely staggering for the film’s final global tally. ‘The Odyssey‘ is currently tracking to finish its theatrical run between $1.6 billion and $1.7 billion worldwide, positioning it to become the all-time highest-grossing R-rated movie ever released, according to Koimoi. That projection comes as the film continues expanding into major international territories that had yet to open when it first crossed the billion-dollar mark.

Alongside that overall total, IMAX’s contribution to the film’s box office has become a story in its own right. As the first feature ever shot entirely on IMAX cameras, ‘The Odyssey’ has already generated $289 million in IMAX ticket sales globally, according to Variety, officially surpassing ‘Avatar’s’ previous IMAX record of $271 million. With China’s roughly 800 IMAX screens only recently added to the film’s rollout, that number is expected to keep climbing well past the $500 million mark by the time the film finishes its run.

Much of that IMAX success has been driven by the film’s 70mm presentations, Nolan’s preferred viewing format, which have generated tens of millions of dollars from a scarce handful of global locations. Many of those 70mm screenings have remained sold out for weeks at a time, a rarity for any release regardless of scale or subject matter.

China’s box office debut only added fuel to that momentum. ‘The Odyssey’ scored Nolan’s second-biggest opening weekend ever in the country, trailing only ‘Interstellar,’ while comfortably beating out the debut of ‘Tenet.’ That kind of reception in one of the world’s largest and historically difficult moviegoing markets speaks to just how far the film’s word-of-mouth has traveled beyond North America and Europe.

The film’s box office success is especially notable given its budget and format. Made on a reported $250 million production budget, ‘The Odyssey’ has already turned a substantial profit well before factoring in its remaining international expansion, according to Koimoi’s reporting on the film’s China performance. Starring Matt Damon as Odysseus alongside Anne Hathaway, Tom Holland, and Robert Pattinson, the film has become the highest-grossing release of each of their careers to date.

IMAX’s own leadership has framed the film’s success as a turning point for the format’s future rather than a one-off event. The company’s fully immersive format has consistently accounted for an outsized share of the film’s total gross relative to its limited number of screens worldwide, reinforcing just how much of a draw large-format presentations have become for a certain type of theatrical event film.

With China, Japan, and other key markets still contributing to the film’s ongoing rollout, ‘The Odyssey’ shows little sign of slowing down anytime soon. If current tracking holds, Nolan may end up delivering not just his biggest film ever, but one of the most significant theatrical runs of the post-pandemic era altogether.

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