Christopher Nolan‘s highly anticipated feature take of Homer’s The Odyssey has a wild opening range between $80M-$100M when the Universal release hits North American theaters on July 17.
Why such a wide swath forecast despite selling out 70MM Imax screens a year in advance, and PLFs most recently? Nobody knows how high these Nolan movies will be in their opening weekend. His multi-Oscar winning Oppenheimer was originally eyeing $40M-$50M before opening, then mushroomed to an unprecedented $82.4M start. Some still wonder if the Barbenheimer effect of the marketplace had anything to do with that. This time Nolan has the only major studio wide tentpole on its opening weekend.
In addition, the great advance large format ticket sales skew heavily to Nolan’s cinefile base. The Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, Tom Holland, Robert Pattinson, Lupita Nyong’o, Zendaya, Charlize Theron, and Jon Bernthal ensemble has a three week exclusive run in Imax.
First choice in tracking is best with guys over 25, just slightly ahead of Oppenheimer at the same point in time. Overall first choice for The Odyssey is ahead of Oppenheimer and tied with that of Project Hail Mary ($80.5M).
Nolan’s top three openings at the domestic box office are 2012’s Dark Knight Rises ($160.9M), 2008’s The Dark Knight ($158.4M), followed by Oppenheimer.
The other factor to consider with Nolan movies are the multiple. Oppenheimer had a solid 4x multiple off its opening for a final $330M stateside. His Leonardo DiCaprio dream caper Inception had a 4.7x multiple opening at $62.7M and finales at $292.5M in North America.
Between The Odyssey and Sony/Marvel Studios’ Spider-Man: Brand New Day on July 31, it’s going to be a banger of a summer according to Rentrak, potentially hitting the $4.2B mark, the best since 2019’s $4.3B haul.