On today’s episode of “Daily Variety” podcast, in our Box Office segment, Variety’s Rebecca Rubin breaks down the spectacular $264 million worldwide opening for Universal Pictures’ “The Odyssey.” It couldn’t have come at a better time for Imax, the large-format exhibitor that delivered more than 50% of the opening weekend receipts.
Anticipation for Nolan’s follow-up to 2023’s “Oppenheimer” was so strong that there was little doubt that the $250 million production would open big. But the final figures demonstrates just how solidly “The Odyssey” was able to mobilize audiences across the world.
“What’s most impressive is the fact that this movie had such a big opening weekend for an R-rated sword and sandal epic. Christopher Nolan is really the only director who could pull something like this off at the budget that he did and justify the spend from the studio,” Rubin says. “He has really solidified himself as a brand at the box office, and he’s one of the very, very rare directors today who can get people to go out to the movies just because he is putting out a new film. It doesn’t even matter what the genre is, what type of film it is. People just want to see whatever he is making next.”
