‘The Odyssey’ Is Still Making Money Months After Becoming Christopher Nolan’s Biggest Hit Ever
Most blockbusters burn bright for a few weekends and then fade quietly into streaming queues. Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Odyssey‘ never got that memo. The R-rated epic has kept climbing the global charts, and the latest numbers show it is still adding to a total that already looked untouchable.
Universal’s adaptation of Homer’s poem opened on July 17 with a $124.5 million domestic debut from 3,919 theaters and $264.1 million worldwide. It was one of the best-reviewed films of the year, earning an “A” CinemaScore and 95% from critics on Rotten Tomatoes. From there, the film defied the usual box office curve.
Today, ‘The Odyssey’ is estimated at roughly $1.789 billion worldwide, though trackers such as The Numbers list it slightly lower at about $1.784 billion. It has grossed around $624.9 million domestically and about $1.16 billion internationally. Set against a $250 million budget, that works out to a haul more than 7 times its cost, and a forecast from box office trackers suggests it could finish near $1.8 billion.
🚨🤩 #TheOdyssey is still making money and is now at ~$1.789B box office worldwide! Impossible to break into the TOP 10 highest-grossing movies of all time (Zootopia 2 too far at $1.870B) Maybe we need The Odyssey: Encore after all 👀 Budget💸: $250M – profit🎯✅ https://t.co/aR3hOUGfjJ
— Box Office Forecast 🎬 (@BoxOfficeFcst) October 18, 2026
The film’s staying power started early. Its second weekend brought in $90 million, a drop of just 27% from its debut. That marked the best second-weekend hold among $100 million openers of all time, per Box Office Watch.
It crossed $1 billion on August 7, becoming the 65th film to reach that milestone. A few days later it passed ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ as Nolan’s highest-grossing movie ever and became IMAX’s biggest release of all time with $289 million, overtaking ‘Avatar.’ Nolan’s preferred IMAX 70mm format contributed from just 41 locations worldwide.
The records kept stacking up. During its sixth weekend, its worldwide total of $1.452 billion surpassed ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ to become the highest-grossing R-rated film of all time. Universal later announced that it had passed 2015’s ‘Jurassic World’ to become the studio’s biggest film ever.
The most striking part of the story is how it is performing now. According to MovieWeb, the film is still outgrossing newer and much wider releases despite playing in only 560 theaters. It has already out-earned Tom Cruise’s ‘Digger’ roughly 47 times over on a global basis.
Box Office Watch ranks it #11 on the all-time list of biggest worldwide runs and #5 for the longest runs of $1 million-plus days, with 62 in total. It also posted the sixth-biggest eighth weekend in history with $13.1 million. Wikipedia currently lists it as the eleventh-highest-grossing film of all time.
The next milestone is the one fans are hoping for, but it looks like a long shot. The ‘Zootopia 2’ total of $1.870 billion sits just beyond reach in the all-time top 10. Even with steady weekends, the gap of roughly $80 million is a lot for a film this deep into its run.
Still, being in the conversation at all is remarkable for an original, nearly three-hour adaptation of a 2,700-year-old poem. The movie was also caught up in culture-war chatter before release, and it has outlasted all of it. Many analysts expected a strong opening, but few predicted the legs.
The final trailer for Christopher Nolan’s ‘THE ODYSSEY’ has been released. In theaters on July 17. https://t.co/xn42TcX4aG
— DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) July 1, 2026
Nolan wrote and directed the film, which stars Matt Damon as Odysseus alongside Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Zendaya and Robert Pattinson. Jon Bernthal plays Menelaus and also appears as the Punisher in ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day,’ the only 2026 release currently ahead of it. Together, those 2 films have powered one of the biggest box office years on record.
The movie also became the fastest to reach 1 million watches on Letterboxd, doing it in 6 days, half the time of previous champion ‘Barbie.’ That early enthusiasm from cinephiles fed into word of mouth, and the IMAX tickets kept selling. For a filmmaker whose back catalog already includes ‘Oppenheimer,’ ‘Inception’ and ‘Interstellar,’ it is a new peak.
What do you think will happen next?
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