'The Odyssey' Conquers Box Office (Again), Sacks Troll Armies, Pillages $640 Million Worldwide
Chris Nolan's action fantasy took one of the smallest domestic drops ever for any $100 million-plus opener with a ten-day total higher than any movie that had opened below $125 million
Universal and Syncopy’s The Odyssey earned $215.3 million in its second worldwide weekend, with a mere 19% drop on the global stage. That includes $87 million in North America (-30%) and $128.3 million overseas (-10% overall and -20% in the holdover territories). Chris Nolan’s R-rated, three-hour fantasy adventure melodrama has now earned $286.4 million in North America and $353.2 million overseas for a current $640 million worldwide running cume.
Among top-billed Matt Damon flicks, it has passed The Martian ($630 million in 2015, sans inflation) and will soon pass Interstellar ($677 million in 2014, $722 million with reissues) to be the actor’s very biggest global earner. And if you bring up his cameos in Thor: Ragnarok ($854 million in 2017), Deadpool 2 ($824 million in 2018) and Thor: Love and Thunder ($755 million in 2022), I’ll reply A) “Shut up, dumbass.” and B) “Just give it a week.
It is currently the fifth-biggest domestic grosser of 2026 and the seventh worldwide. It should pass $300 million domestically and $700 million worldwide by late Tuesday/early Wednesday. That will put it past The Devil Wears Prada 2 ($690 million) on the year’s global grossers list. “Suck it, Anne Hathaway!” says, uh… Anne Hathaway. Your move, The End of Oak Street!
Anyway, once it cracks $700 million, it’ll place for 2026 behind only this year’s $1 billion-plus earners (Toy Story 5, Michael and The Super Mario Galaxy Movie). Well, until Spider-Man: Brand New Day swings into theaters. “Take that, Tom Holland, Zendaya and Jon Bernthal,” declares uh… ditto. Just how absurd is that in terms of totals and holds? Well, let’s dig in!
An IMAX digression
But first, a note on the IMAX box office: $24 million domestically (a record 27.7% market share) and $48 million worldwide this weekend. That is a company-best second-weekend gross, amid a global decline of just 8% and an overseas increase of 6%, as it passed $100 million in IMAX-specific earnings in a record ten days of release. The format’s 18% domestic decline is the best hold ever for any title opening with at least $10 million in IMAX theaters.
Just the 70MM IMAX screens notched another $5.2 million from 41 worldwide locations for a $126k per-theater average. The 70MM IMAX screens have earned $16.9 million worldwide thus far, repping 12.1% of the total IMAX-specific grosses. Two weeks in, the 70MM IMAX auditoriums have earned $412k per-screen thus far. The overall share among all PLFs (Imax, 70mm, and the likes of Dolby, D-Box and Cinemark XD) was a whopping 57%, above last weekend’s 53% share.
As much as the film is being sold as a “must-see-it-in-IMAX-or-else” attraction, 72% of moviegoers spent $63 million to see The Odyssey in non-IMAX auditoriums. I don’t love the idea of the film being seen as a PLF-or-bust tentpole, but A) whatever gets them off the couch and B) it’s another case of a big flick having longer-than-otherwise-expected legs due to audiences waiting until they can see the movie in the format of their choice. Speaking of legs…
