Christopher Nolan on the set of Interstellar.Image via Melinda Sue Gordon/Paramount Pictures/Everett Collection
The Odyssey is poised to deliver the biggest second-weekend haul of Christopher Nolan‘s career, beating his previous best of $75 million, posted by The Dark Knight in 2008. It’s not as if Nolan hasn’t directed any hit films since then, which makes The Odyssey‘s achievement all the more stunning. For context, Nolan directed blockbusters such as the landmark sci-fi heist movie Inception, the epic superhero threequel The Dark Knight Rises, the space adventure Interstellar, the World War II thriller Dunkirk, and the biographical drama Oppenheimer in the years between his second Batman movie and The Odyssey. As we speak, the mythological epic is passing the $400 million mark at the global box office, having already passed the $200 million milestone domestically.
In doing so, The Odyssey has overtaken the lifetime global hauls of two Nolan movies in a single day. The Odyssey is tied with The Dark Knight Rises as Nolan’s most expensive film, with a reported budget of $250 million. Starring Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, Tom Holland, and Robert Pattinson, the movie has earned some of the best reviews of Nolan’s illustrious career. The filmmaker’s reputation hit a new peak a couple of years ago when he won the Best Director and Best Picture honors for Oppenheimer. The Odyssey currently holds a “Certified Fresh” 94% critics’ score and a “Verified Hot” 97% audience score on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, where the consensus reads, “Reinvigorating an ancient adventure with majestic sweep and sterling work by its colossal ensemble, Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey imbues myth with primal human feeling.”
Collider Exclusive · Middle-earth Quiz Which Lord of the Rings Character Are You? One Quiz · Ten Questions · Your Fate Revealed
The road goes ever on. From the green hills of the Shire to the fires of Mount Doom, every soul in Middle-earth carries a destiny. Ten questions stand between you and the truth of who you are. Answer honestly — the One Ring has a way of revealing what we most want to hide.
💍Frodo
🌿Samwise
👑Aragorn
🔥Gandalf
🏹Legolas
⚒️Gimli
👁️Sauron
🪨Gollum
01
You are handed a responsibility that could destroy you. What do you do? The weight of the world falls on unlikely shoulders.
02
Your closest companion is heading into terrible danger. You: True loyalty is revealed not in comfort, but in crisis.
03
Enormous power is within your reach. Your instinct is: Power corrupts — but only those who reach for it.
04
What does “home” mean to you? Where we long to return reveals who we truly are.
05
When a battle is upon you, your approach is: War reveals what we are made of — whether we like it or not.
06
Someone comes to you for advice in their darkest hour. You: Wisdom is not knowing all the answers — it’s knowing which questions to ask.
07
How do you see yourself, honestly? Self-knowledge is the most dangerous kind.
08
Which of these best describes your relationship with the natural world? Middle-earth speaks to those who know how to listen.
09
You encounter a wretched, pitiable creature who has done terrible things. You: How we treat the fallen reveals the height of our character.
10
When the quest is over and the songs are sung, what do you hope they say about you? In the end, we are all just stories.
The Fellowship Has Spoken Your Place in Middle-earth
The scores below reveal your true character. Your highest number is your match. Even a tie tells a story — the Fellowship was never made of simple people.
💍 Frodo
🌿 Samwise
👑 Aragorn
🔥 Gandalf
🏹 Legolas
⚒️ Gimli
👁️ Sauron
🪨 Gollum
You carry something heavy — and you carry it alone, even when you don’t have to. You were not born for greatness, and that is precisely why greatness chose you. Your courage is not the roaring, sword-swinging kind; it is quiet, stubborn, and terrifying in its refusal to quit. The Ring weighs on you more than anyone can see, and still you walk toward the fire. That is not weakness. That is the rarest kind of strength there is.
You are, without question, the best of them. Not the most powerful, not the most celebrated — but the most essential. Your loyalty is not a trait; it is a force of nature. You would carry the person you love up the slopes of Mount Doom if it came to that, and we both know you’d do it without being asked. The world needs more people like you, and the world is lucky it has even one.
You were born to lead, and you have spent years running from it. The crown is yours by right, but you know better than anyone that right means nothing without the will and the worthiness to back it up. You are tempered by loss, shaped by long roads, and defined by a code of honour you hold to even when no one is watching. When you finally step forward, the world shifts. Because it was always waiting for you.
You have seen more than you let on, and you say less than you know — which is exactly as it should be. You are a catalyst: you do not fight the battles yourself, you ignite the people who can. Your wisdom comes not from books but from an age of watching what happens when it is ignored. You arrive precisely when you mean to, and your presence alone changes what is possible. A wizard is never late.
Graceful, perceptive, and almost preternaturally calm under pressure — you see things others miss and act before others react. You do not need to make a scene to be remarkable; your presence speaks for itself. You are loyal to those you choose to stand beside, and that choice is not made lightly. You have lived long enough to know that the most beautiful things in this world are also the most fragile, and that is why you fight to protect them.
You are loud, proud, and absolutely formidable — and beneath all of that is one of the most fiercely loyal hearts in Middle-earth. You don’t do anything by half measures. Your friendships are forged like iron, your grudges run as deep as mines, and your courage in battle is the kind that makes legends. You came into this fellowship suspicious of everyone and ended it willing to die for an elf. That is not a small thing. That is everything.
You think in centuries and act in absolutes. Order, dominion, control — not because you are cruel by nature, but because you have decided that the world left to itself always falls apart, and you are the only one with the vision and the will to hold it together. You were not always this. Something was lost, or taken, or betrayed, and the version of you that stands now is the answer to that wound. The tragedy is that you’re not entirely wrong — just entirely too far gone to course-correct.
You are a study in contradiction — pitiable and dangerous, cunning and broken, capable of both cruelty and something that once resembled love. You are defined by loss: of innocence, of self, of the one thing that gave your existence meaning. Two voices war inside you constantly, and the tragedy is that the better one sometimes wins, just not often enough, and never at the right moment. You are a warning, yes — but also a mirror. We are all a little Gollum, given the right ring and enough time.
‘The Odyssey’ Has Overtaken 2 Christopher Nolan Movies in a Single Day
In around a week of release, the film has overtaken the $363 million and $385 million global hauls of Nolan’s sci-fi mind-bender Tenet and superhero debut Batman Begins, respectively. Batman Begins established Nolan as a large-scale studio filmmaker and received positive reviews for its grounded take on the comic book genre. It cost a reported $150 million to produce and changed the industry as we know it; virtually every other studio attempted to produce their own version of a grounded tentpole in the next few years. Tenet, on the other hand, combined the espionage thrills of a James Bond movie with Nolan’s trademark meditation on time. It cost more than $200 million to produce and remains the most divisive entry in Nolan’s filmography. Tenet‘s box office performance was impacted by its oddly timed release in 2020, when theaters were operating under strict restrictions worldwide. The movie holds a 70% critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes, while Batman Begins is sitting at an 85% critics’ score. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.