Christopher Nolan again! He’s always in the news! His new movie, The Odyssey, doesn’t come out for a whole year; it’s July 17, 2026. Even though it’s not out yet, it’s already generating a lot of buzz and is expected to break a big record for him!
You may remember from an earlier video that tickets for some special IMAX 70mm showings of The Odyssey went on sale a few days ago, a whole year before the movie comes out. This was a first in movie history and it worked! The special tickets, especially for premium formats, sold out quickly and brought in $1.5 million in pre-sales.
Now here’s the good part: this early showing has The Odyssey on track to be Christopher Nolan’s biggest movie ever, beating the 14 year old record held by The Dark Knight Rises.
Let’s check out Nolan’s biggest box office hits:
- The Dark Knight Rises (2012) is the biggest with over $1.08 billion worldwide.
- The Dark Knight (2008) is second with over $1 billion.
- His latest Oscar winning movie Oppenheimer (2023) almost hit a billion with $975 million worldwide.
The Dark Knight Rises was 14 years ago in 2012 and has been Nolan’s biggest movie ever since. It’s amazing to see this kind of demand before The Odyssey which isn’t part of a franchise and is a mythological epic. If Oppenheimer a 3 hour movie for adults got close to a billion, it’s easy to imagine The Odyssey doing even better with its big budget, famous actors and a story based on ancient Greek myths.
The demand for these early tickets which sell out in minutes at top IMAX theaters in big cities around the world is not a coincidence. It shows how much trust and excitement people have for a Christopher Nolan movie especially when it’s said to be another IMAX experience. This will be the first commercial movie filmed entirely with IMAX cameras which is a big draw for movie fans.
Matt Damon is Odysseus, Tom Holland is Telemachus and there’s a great supporting cast with Anne Hathaway, Zendaya and Robert Pattinson. The talent in this movie is massive! When you add that to Nolan’s ability to create complex, visually stunning and emotionally powerful stories you have a recipe for a big hit at the box office.
The fact that The Odyssey is doing this much business a year out puts it in a great position to challenge The Dark Knight Rises for Nolan’s box office record. Universal and Nolan are taking a big risk by putting tickets on sale so early but it’s definitely paying off as a marketing move. They’re generating buzz for the film even before the official trailer is online.
