After months of anticipation, Christopher Nolan’s new adaptation of the classic Greek epic Odyssey by Homer is now out in theatres.
The chatter about the film online has been largely negative. For instance, its official trailer has eventually broken the record for the most disliked movie trailer on YouTube—however, please note that these numbers are from third-party browser extensions, as YouTube has not been displaying the dislike counters publicly since late 2021.
Despite all the backlash on the internet, the film has always been expected to do well at the box office.
The Odyssey broke a positive record as well, and one much more important for the distributing studio Universal Pictures than YouTube dislikes: pre-sales for IMAX theatres. The film has sold a record-high 150,000 presale tickets in 24 hours for the special movie theatres.
Thus, as the industry anticipated, the preview numbers from Thursday, 16 July, are looking very good for Christopher Nolan's latest project.
A day before the official release day, The Odyssey had already made around $15 million in theatres. That is the best preview showing for any live-action movie released this year, and the third best in Nolan’s career, only behind two of his Batman superhero movies, The Dark Knight Rises (2012, $30.6 million) and The Dark Knight (2008, $18.5 million).
So far, the industry projections of an opening weekend of around $100 million domestically and around $220 million worldwide seem quite achievable for The Odyssey.
However, that does not mean that criticisms of the movie online have ceased.
The Odyssey Leaked Movie Scenes Mocked by the Internet
Clips of the upcoming Odyssey movie have been leaked online before the preview showings. Universal Pictures has been quite aggressive in taking those down with copyright strikes, so by now, they are hard to find besides a few screenshots or a few-second-long clips in videos by creators covering the story.
Online critics are still not happy with the casting of Lupita Nyong’o in the role of Helen of Troy. They froze the clip at a frame where she certainly does not look like the most beautiful woman in the world whose ‘face has launched a thousand ships’.
The other widely criticized casting choice of the movie was that of transgender actor Elliot Page. Page was originally rumoured to play the legendary Greek warrior Achilles. That turned out not to be the case. Instead, she will be appearing in the role of warrior Sinon, which still drew some mockery online due to her not too intimidating stature.
However, if anyone is rooting for a box-office bomb like Snow White (2025) or Supergirl (2026), we are telling you in advance that it is not going to happen for The Odyssey. Due to its massive production budget of $250 million, it still may fail to turn a profit, but it will certainly pull in an impressively high revenue at the box office during its theatrical run.
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