Director Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of The Odyssey grossed $264.1m in global ticket sales, including $124.5m in the US and Canada, Universal Pictures said on Sunday.
The film, based on the ancient Greek poem by Homer, stars Matt Damon as the Greek hero Odysseus, and follows his perilous journey home after fighting the Trojan War. It is Nolan’s first movie since the 2023 blockbuster Oppenheimer, which won Academy Awards in several categories, including directing and best picture.
The Odyssey cost $250m to make. It received an A CinemaScore from filmgoers who attended opening-night screenings, and an audience rating of 97% on Rotten Tomatoes. The film represents Nolan’s biggest global opening of all time, without factoring in inflation, and his third-highest-grossing in the US and Canada, behind The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises.
Fans began snapping up Odyssey tickets a year ago when seats at select IMAX theatres were put on sale. IMAX said demand for tickets was so high, more than 50 theatres across North America added show times between midnight and 7am.
Most scholars believe the epic poem attributed to Homer was composed in the 7th or 8th century BC and was sung before that in oral tradition. Nolan’s film centres on a portion of Odysseus’s home-coming, where he encounters gods and monsters, storms and tragedy.
Reuters
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