Christopher Nolan just threw a lifeline to the 2026 summer box office. His highly anticipated adaptation of Homer’s epic, The Odyssey, racked up $17.6 million in Thursday previews. That instantly crowns it the highest preview gross of the year so far. The film officially opened everywhere on July 17, and theaters are already completely packed.
Hollywood desperately needed this exact win. The industry is finally operating its first fully normalized production calendar since the 2023 strikes. And Nolan brought out the heavy hitters. The project carries an estimated $250 million production tag and was shot entirely on 70mm IMAX cameras. The cast list alone explains the frenzy, putting Matt Damon in the role of Odysseus alongside Anne Hathaway as Penelope, Tom Holland as Telemachus, and Zendaya playing Athena.
To put that $17.6 million number into perspective, it blows right past the $10.5 million Oppenheimer earned in its Thursday night launch. In fact, this is Nolan’s third-largest preview haul ever. It trails only the peak superhero hype of The Dark Knight Rises at $30.64 million and The Dark Knight at $18.5 million. Industry trackers now project the film will comfortably sail past a $200 million global opening weekend, with domestic screens expected to pull in $80 million to $100 million.
Critics are entirely on board. Early reviews describe the picture as a cinematic triumph, and the movie is currently riding a wave of near-universal critical acclaim across major international publications. Several top critics have already handed it five-star ratings. That word-of-mouth energy is translating directly into ticket sales, especially for premium screens.
The IMAX demand is entirely off the charts. The BFI IMAX in the UK shattered its first-day sales records by grossing £750,000 in just 24 hours. IMAX CEO Richard Gelfond confirmed the release generated the company’s highest presales of all time. This premium format surge is lifting the entire theater ecosystem. Since May, the global summer box office has generated an estimated $2.5 billion. Thanks to Nolan, theaters are now tracking just shy of the $2.7 billion benchmark set during the record-breaking summer box office of 2019.