Christopher Nolan has spent two decades making films that open big and then refuse to leave. His newest one just set a personal record for the second half of that equation.
Universal’s The Odyssey took in roughly $87 million in its second domestic weekend, according to figures reported by Deadline, the strongest second frame of Nolan’s career. Among R-rated releases it trails only Deadpool & Wolverine, which held $96.8 million in its second outing, and sits well ahead of the $60.1 million second weekend posted by It. For Universal, the film is now the studio’s second-biggest R-rated title ever, behind Nolan’s own Oppenheimer and ahead of Ted.
Overseas the picture is much the same. The film’s second global weekend came in around $215.3 million, a decline of roughly 18% from a worldwide opening near $263.7 million. Drops that shallow on a film of this size are unusual, and they are the clearest signal available that word of mouth is doing the work that marketing budgets cannot buy.
The number that matters more
The individual title is the headline. The industry number underneath it is the story.
Rentrak data cited by Deadline puts the domestic box office from January 1 through July 26 at approximately $5.7 billion, about 10% ahead of the same stretch in 2025. That is a meaningful recovery for a business that spent the years after the pandemic absorbing a steady stream of obituaries. Theatrical exhibition employs tens of thousands of Americans in projection, concessions, marketing, distribution, and the real estate that houses it all, and a 10% swing at the national level moves real payroll.
The weekend itself was softer, at roughly $148.2 million, down about 20% from the comparable frame a year earlier. That comparison says more about what was playing last July than about the health of the market. Calendars are lumpy. Year-to-date totals are not.
A billion-dollar first for Lionsgate
Elsewhere on the chart, the Michael Jackson biopic Michael, released by Lionsgate and Universal, crossed $1 billion worldwide. That makes it the highest-grossing biographical film ever made and the first billion-dollar title in Lionsgate’s history, a milestone for a studio that has historically operated a tier below the majors on production budgets.
Universal also crossed the billion-dollar line earlier in June with Illumination and Nintendo’s The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, giving the studio an unusually strong year on both ends of the ratings spectrum.
The specialty market showed some life as well. Bleecker Street’s Hadestown: The Musical opened to roughly $9.7 million and took the fourth spot on the chart, the best opening in the distributor’s history and ahead of what Hamilton managed in theaters.
Why this is a business story
Film is one of the few American industries that still runs a reliable trade surplus. Domestic theatrical performance is the leading indicator for everything downstream of it: licensing values, streaming acquisition prices, the size of production slates, and the number of shoot days that states compete to attract with tax credits.
A 10% year-over-year gain does not settle the argument about whether theatrical exhibition has a long-term future. It does suggest that the people who declared that argument over a few years ago called it early.
Source reporting: Deadline, Rentrak, Box Office Mojo.