Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” has passed $700 million at the global box office after only 12 days in theaters, making it the fourth-highest-grossing film of 2026 so far. The Greek epic has pulled in $320.5 million domestically and $407.4 million internationally, for a combined worldwide total of $727.9 million, and it has yet to open in China, the industry’s second-largest theatrical market.
Starring Matt Damon as Odysseus alongside Anne Hathaway, Tom Holland, Robert Pattinson, Lupita Nyong’o, Zendaya and Charlize Theron, the film opened domestically on July 17 following a London premiere earlier that month. Its second weekend brought in $87 million domestically, a hold industry analysts have called the strongest sophomore frame of the year, ahead of even “Toy Story 5.” Internationally, the film has topped charts in markets including the UK, France, Italy and Australia, with its running totals in several countries already surpassing the full theatrical lifetimes of Nolan’s earlier films “Dunkirk,” “Interstellar” and “Tenet.”
The film is expected to join the billion-dollar club within the coming week, a threshold reached so far in 2026 only by “Toy Story 5,” “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” and “Michael.” Should it get there, “The Odyssey” would become the fourth film this year to cross $1 billion worldwide and would put Nolan within range of overtaking “The Dark Knight Rises” as his highest-grossing release. Industry watchers also see a path for the R-rated epic to challenge “Deadpool & Wolverine” for the record as the biggest R-rated release ever, depending on how the film performs when it opens in China on August 14.
IMAX chief executive Richard Gelfond credited the film’s premium-format appeal for much of its momentum, noting it has moved beyond a conventional blockbuster into a cultural event. The result caps a summer that industry analysts describe as Hollywood’s strongest box office stretch since before the pandemic, with “The Odyssey” arriving just ahead of Sony’s “Spider-Man: Brand New Day,” which opens this weekend and is projected to post one of the year’s biggest openings.
