‘The Odyssey’ Just Set the Biggest Tuesday of All Time for Hollywood Overseas

Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Odyssey’ has spent nearly a week in theaters proving it has no intention of slowing down, breaking records seemingly every single day since its release. What began as a historic opening weekend has since evolved into one of the most sustained box office success stories of the year.

That momentum has been especially pronounced overseas, where the film has continued shattering local benchmarks well past its debut. Italy in particular has emerged as one of the standout markets throughout the rollout, and the country just delivered another jaw-dropping milestone.

According to reporting from box office trackers, ‘The Odyssey’ became a cultural phenomenon in Italy this week, grossing $2.5 million on what stands as the biggest first Tuesday of all time for a Hollywood release in that market. The number reportedly beat out major previous benchmarks including ‘Inside Out 2’s’ $2.4 million, ‘Oppenheimer’s’ $1.6 million and ‘The Devil Wears Prada 2’s’ $1.5 million.

That Tuesday total marked a genuine acceleration rather than the usual weekday decline most films experience, climbing roughly 19 percent from an already record setting Monday performance. The film’s cumulative total in Italy now sits at $16.1 million with 1.7 million admissions after just six days in release.

The strength in Italy fits within a broader pattern of record breaking weekday performances the film has posted across markets. In the United States, ‘The Odyssey’ scored its best domestic Tuesday grossing $21.4 million, surpassing Nolan’s previous personal best set by ‘The Dark Knight,’ which earned $20.8 million on a Tuesday back in July 2008.

That domestic Tuesday figure ranks as the second best of the entire year so far, trailing only ‘Toy Story 5’s’ $23.69 million, and stands as Universal’s second best Tuesday ever behind ‘Jurassic World’s’ $24.3 million debut back in 2015. Given how rarely films outperform their opening weekend pace on weekday showings, this kind of sustained strength has become one of the defining stories of the film’s release.

Italy’s outsized performance builds on an already historic opening for the country. The film’s initial debut there registered as the biggest Nolan opening in Italy, and Universal’s biggest ever opening in the market, alongside standing as the biggest July opening the country has ever seen, defying long-standing industry assumptions about summertime blockbuster performance in that region.

These kinds of numbers have pushed some analysts to speculate that ‘The Odyssey’s’ second domestic weekend could actually outperform the second weekend hauls of Nolan’s own ‘Dark Knight’ films, projections that would have seemed unthinkable for a nearly three-hour, R-rated adaptation of a 3,000-year-old poem just a few weeks ago.

With the entirety of August still ahead on the release calendar and the film continuing to set records in market after market, ‘The Odyssey’ shows no signs of slowing its historic run anytime soon. Whether it continues piling up these kinds of milestones through its second weekend and beyond remains one of the most closely watched storylines in this year’s box office race.

What do you think about ‘The Odyssey’ continuing to smash records well past its opening weekend? Let us know in the comments.