Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” pulled in $17.6 million in previews on Thursday night ahead – the best preview numbers of the year so far.
That’s well ahead of the previous 2026 record of $12.6 million held by “Michael” which went on to a $97.2 million domestic opening weekend. It’s also well ahead of the $10.5 million in previews that Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” managed back in 2023.
It’s not the biggest preview numbers for a Nolan film Stateside; that belongs to “The Dark Knight Rises” at $30.6 million, but it is very close to the $18.5 million that his “The Dark Knight” managed in 2008.
Review scores for the film on critical aggregate sites are among Nolan’s highest to date, with a 96% on Rotten Tomatoes and an 89/100 on Metacritic.
The question is, will the film have success in non-premium format auditoriums? In some countries, IMAX screenings of the movie are selling out for weeks with only the neck-cracking front few rows available in cinemas.
With no real competition, especially in the wake of soft starts for “Supergirl” and “Moana,” “The Odyssey” is the one film everyone will be talking about this weekend.
The numbers come as ticket tracking service Rentrak says if the pace of sales holds up in the second half of the year as it did the first, yearly domestic grosses are expected to hit $10 billion for the first time since the onset of the pandemic.
Source: Deadline
