---
title: "Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey sets sail with record 15 million dollar previews"
description: "Christopher Nolan's 'The Odyssey' opened with about $15 million from Thursday preview screenings, the biggest for a live-action film so far this year and a sign the director's $250 million retelling of Homer is headed for a huge weekend. Trackers project a domestic opening near $100 million."
category: "Entertainment"
category_url: https://herald.la/category/entertainment
author: "Simone Bishop"
published: 2026-07-17T06:53:00.000Z
updated: 2026-07-17T06:53:00.000Z
canonical: https://herald.la/article/christopher-nolan-s-the-odyssey-sets-sail-with-record-15-million-dollar-previews
tags: ["the odyssey", "christopher nolan", "box office", "imax", "universal"]
---
# Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey sets sail with record 15 million dollar previews

Christopher Nolan's 'The Odyssey' opened with about $15 million from Thursday preview screenings, the biggest for a live-action film so far this year and a sign the director's $250 million retelling of Homer is headed for a huge weekend. Trackers project a domestic opening near $100 million.

Christopher Nolan has done it again at the box office, before most people have even seen the film. His new epic, "The Odyssey," took in [about $15 million from Thursday-night preview screenings](https://deadline.com/2026/07/box-office-the-odyssey-1236993792/), the strongest previews for any live-action movie so far this year and a head start on what looks like a very big opening weekend.

## A record start

The preview haul topped the number Nolan's own "Oppenheimer" posted on its way to a blockbuster run, buoyed as that film was by premium large-format screens. On the strength of Thursday, trackers now [project "The Odyssey" to open somewhere near $90 million to $100 million domestically](https://variety.com/2026/film/box-office/odyssey-box-office-opening-weekend-projections-christopher-nolan-1236809975/), with a global weekend that could approach $200 million. A result in that range would rank as Nolan's biggest opening in well over a decade.

## The scale of the bet

"The Odyssey" is a swing befitting Homer. Distributed by Universal and made on a budget reported around $250 million, it is a sprawling adaptation of the ancient Greek poem, with Nolan assembling a marquee cast for the journey of Odysseus home from the Trojan War. It is also a technical landmark: the production has been billed as the first feature shot entirely with IMAX cameras, a format Nolan has long championed and that has made his films events to be seen on the largest screens possible.

## Why it matters

For a theatrical business still working to rebuild the habit of going out to the movies, a Nolan release remains one of the surest draws left, an original, non-franchise film that audiences will turn into an event. Strong previews for an adult-skewing, three-hour epic are a reassuring sign for studios betting that big-screen spectacle can still pull crowds. The weekend's actual numbers will come in over the next few days, but the early read is unambiguous: "The Odyssey" is off to the kind of start that Hollywood, and Los Angeles, still counts on Christopher Nolan to deliver.

## Sources

- ['The Odyssey' launches weekend voyage with Thursday previews around $15M](https://deadline.com/2026/07/box-office-the-odyssey-1236993792/)
- ['The Odyssey' box office opening weekend projections for Nolan's film](https://variety.com/2026/film/box-office/odyssey-box-office-opening-weekend-projections-christopher-nolan-1236809975/)