There is a certain muscularity to the staying power of Universal’s The Odyssey, a quality that has put it at odds with the usual run of summer blockbusters and prompted Hollywood box office types to have another look at their long-term projections. Since its record-breaking global debut, the R-rated take on Homer’s epic has been nothing short of extraordinary. Case in point: an $18.05 million domestic take on Wednesday, which speaks volumes about the strength of word-of-mouth and how well the film is holding onto its audience.
That mid-week figure is a mere 16% off the $21.4 million it put up on Tuesday. Put it in the context of Christopher Nolan’s body of work and you have his second best midweek day ever, trailing only The Dark Knight’s $18.3 million from a July day in 2008 and well ahead of what The Dark Knight Rises managed in 2012. In six days the feature has raked in a domestic cume of $181.6 million.
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The scale of it becomes apparent when compared with Oppenheimer. At this same six-day mark in its 2023 run, the Oscar-laden biopic was at $117.8 million. The Odyssey is some 54% in front of that pace, no mean feat for a three-hour historical piece that goes against the grain of mainstream IP. And while Oppenheimer left the country with a respectable $330 million, insiders see The Odyssey opening up a higher tier altogether.
You will not find any let-up in its theatrical hold as the film heads into its sophomore weekend. Rival studios have been wise enough to stay out of the way, eschewing wide releases this weekend rather than risk the epic’s crossfire. The result is an ironclad grip on the IMAX and Premium Large Format screens that are so vital to the film; those high-end auditoriums were responsible for 52 per cent of the $123.5 million domestic opening, and the lack of premium seats elsewhere is fueling repeat business.
Tracking for the coming weekend puts the film in the $61 to $74 million range according to Deadline. On the upper end of that estimate, it could very well go toe-to-toe with the second weekends of Nolan’s Batman films, or even surpass them. As for the rest of the marketplace, specialty titles will be vying for what screen space is left. Bleecker Street has Hadestown set for an $8 to $10 million start, Neon is putting Her Private Hell in 700 venues and IFC Films is rolling out Motor City in 1,600. But with its core demographic unthreatened, Nolan’s juggernaut is in complete command of the box office, and all signs point to a journey that is far from over.
Source: Deadline