“The Odyssey” continues to exert significant momentum in North American theaters, earning $87 million in ticket sales, according to studio estimates on Sunday. That is just a 30% drop from the first weekend. It’s also director Christopher Nolan’s best second weekend ever, not accounting for inflation. In 2008, “The Dark Knight” earned $75.2 million on weekend two.
“That would be an impressive opening weekend for any film,” said Paul Dergarabedian, Rentrak’s head of marketplace trends. “This is a testament to the outpouring of excitement and enthusiasm that moviegoers are having for Christopher Nolan’s latest epic.”
With $128.3 million from international theaters, “The Odyssey” has made an estimated $639.6 million globally. Dergarabedian said that theaters around the world are adding showtimes to try to meet the demand.
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Much of the Odyssey’s earnings are from premium large format screens. IMAX screens alone accounted for $48 million of the global earnings this weekend. The coveted 70 mm IMAX screens, of which there are only 41 worldwide, earned $5.2 million. Most of those showtimes are sold out through September, the company said.
According to reports, the movie might face competition next week with the release of “Spider-Man: Brand New Day.” Sony’s Marvel adventure, starring Tom Holland and Zendaya could possibly distract cinema-goers, though exhibitors are excited about the prospect of two massively popular movies to propel the typically slow month of August.
“Once or twice a year a movie opens big and then plays for weeks and weeks,” says David A. Gross, who publishes the box office newsletter FranchiseRe. “‘The Odyssey’ is showing that kind of holding power.”
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“‘The Odyssey’ has crossed over from a hit blockbuster to a global cultural event,” says Imax’s CEO Richard Gelfond. “Our results indicate that audiences around the world will line up to experience this one-of-a-kind film in Imax for weeks, if not months, to come.”
Nolan’s latest film is based on the second epic written roughly 2,800 years ago by the ancient Greek poet Homer who was also blind. It follows his first epic, “The Iliad,” which is set during the Trojan War and tells the story of the war that erupted between the kingdoms of Troy and Sparta. Nolan’s film focuses on Odysseus’s journey back to Ithaca after the war. It took Odysseus an additional 10 long, grueling years to reach his home and finally reunite with his faithful wife Penelope, and his son Telemachus.
According to reports, “The Odyssey” wasn’t the only movie inspired by Greek mythology to land among the top five at the weekend box office. “Hadestown: The Musical,” a filmed version of the very successful Broadway show, had a strong debut with $9.6 million from 1,949 theaters.