The Odyssey Box Office Debut Breaks 5 Records At Once (Domestic Top 5)

The Odyssey is storming theaters with a record-breaking opening weekend.

2026’s The Odyssey is Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of Homer’s classic epic poem of the same name. It boasts a robust, star-studded cast led by Matt Damon as Odysseus alongside Anne Hathaway as Penelope, Tom Holland as Telemachus, Elliot Page as Sinon, Zendaya as Athena, Charlize Theron as Calypso, Samantha Morton as Circe, and Lupita Nyong’o in a double role as Helen of Troy and her sister Clytemnestra. Anticipation has been high for the movie, which has a Certified Fresh 95% Rotten Tomatoes score and famously sold out more than a dozen IMAX 70mm screens a full year before its debut.

Per Deadline, as of Sunday morning, The Odyssey is projected to debut at No. 1 with a 3-day total of $124.5 million at the domestic box office alone by the end of its opening weekend. This sees it earning the biggest domestic debut in history for a movie with Matt Damon in the lead role, vastly outgrossing the previous record holder, which was 2007’s The Bourne Ultimatum with $69.2 million not adjusted for inflation (adjusted, it’s $111.15 million, which still sees The Odyssey squeaking ahead).

However, that’s far from the only record that it has broken. Nolan himself isn’t being left out, as The Odyssey is set to earn his best debut in history for a non-Batman movie, beating Oppenheimer ($82.4 million) and falling behind only The Dark Knight ($158.4 million) and The Dark Knight Rises ($160.8 million).

Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey has also shattered records for the year, earning the best live-action domestic debut of 2026 so far – and the third-best overall, behind The Super Mario Galaxy Movie ($131.7 million) and Toy Story 5 ($159.6 million) – as well as the single best R-rated domestic debut year-to-date, considerably ahead of the smash horror hit Backrooms ($81.4 million), which recently became A24’s highest-grossing movie in history.

To cap it all off, it has earned Universal’s biggest R-rated debut in history, substantially surpassing the romance phenomenon Fifty Shades of Grey ($85.1 million).

With this impressive domestic haul, The Odyssey has already outgrossed the entire domestic runs of all but 12 2026 movies, including prominent titles such as Disclosure Day ($113.2 million), Wuthering Heights ($84 million), Mortal Kombat II ($79.7 million), The Sheep Detectives ($66.1 million), Send Help ($64.7 million), Reminders of Him ($48.5 million), The Drama ($48.1 million), and Lee Cronin’s The Mummy ($29.1 million).

This is all great news for the new Christopher Nolan movie, because it has a high bar to clear in theaters. The reported budget of The Odyssey is a whopping $250 million, which could place its estimated break-even point as high as $625 million (a total that only nine movies reached worldwide in 2025). However, as it stands, it seems on track to become a billion-dollar hit.

Even though The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises just barely crested the billion-dollar milestone, earning $1.008 billion and $1.084 billion worldwide respectively, The Odyssey has the benefit of being Nolan’s follow-up to his runaway smash hit Oppenheimer, which hit a worldwide total of $975.8 million in spite of its lower debut. The new movie could very well continue that momentum, considering the fact that audiences have given it a Verified Hot score of 97% on the Rotten Tomatoes Popcornmeter, which is Nolan’s best audience score in history.

This Weekend’s Domestic Box Office Top 5

©Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures /Courtesy Everett Collection

Below, see the full domestic Top 5 chart for the weekend:

There haven’t been any major shakeups on the rest of the Top 5 chart. With The Odyssey slotting in neatly at No. 1, every other title on the chart has fallen one spot apiece. This is partially thanks to 2026’s Moana having the slimmest week-on-week drop for a Disney live-action remake since 2019 (widening the gap between itself and the 2025 flop Snow White, which had a similar debut). Last weekend’s No. 5 movie, the George Washington biopic Young Washington, has done the same as the other titles, departing the chart to hit No. 6.

The Odyssey has seemingly scared any other major new releases away from its debut weekend, which is why the remainder of the chart has been so unsettled. This should continue to be the case during its sophomore weekend, during which there are no new wide releases whatsoever coming to domestic theaters. The next summer tentpole, Spider-Man: Brand New Day, isn’t set to premiere until July 31, potentially closing out the month with a bang.

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Release Date

July 17, 2026

Runtime

172 Minutes