On Screen · c. 12th century BC (as set by Homer) · Ithaca, Ionian Islands, Greece
Nolan's all-IMAX film of Homer's Odyssey opens to $264 million worldwide
The Homer adaptation, shot entirely on IMAX cameras, took $124.5 million at the domestic box office and $139.6 million abroad, Nolan's largest global opening.
News reports
Ithaca, Greece Christopher Nolan's film of Homer's Odyssey took $264.1 million worldwide in its opening weekend. The figure comes from The Credits, the online platform of the Motion Picture Association. It is Nolan's largest global opening. The film adapts the ancient Greek epic about Odysseus and his voyage home from the Trojan War.
The Odyssey opened in 3,919 domestic theatres and took $124.5 million there. That is Nolan's biggest domestic debut since The Dark Knight Rises took $160 million in 2012. The Credits reports it as the third-largest opening of the year. Only Toy Story 5, with $159 million, and The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, with $131 million, opened bigger.
Abroad, the film took $139.6 million across 73 markets. Its worldwide total beats Nolan's earlier global openings. The Dark Knight Rises opened to $249 million, The Dark Knight to $198 million and Oppenheimer to $180 million.
The film is rated R. The Credits notes that an R rating can usually dampen ticket sales. It also argues that an ancient poem is not the kind of existing material that usually draws huge audiences. Audiences gave the film an A in CinemaScore exit polls. On Rotten Tomatoes it scored 95% with critics.
Shot on IMAX cameras at sea
According to The Credits, Nolan's team were the first filmmakers to shoot an entire feature with IMAX cameras. They filmed aboard a real ship in the Mediterranean. They also worked in the North Sea off the coast of Scotland and in the cold waters of Iceland. Audiences began buying premium-format tickets a full year before release.
Nolan wrote, produced and directed the film. Hoyte van Hoytema was director of photography, and The Credits has reported separately on how the pair staged the Trojan Horse scene. The Credits shows the film's poster courtesy of Universal Pictures.
Matt Damon plays Odysseus and Anne Hathaway plays his wife, Penelope. Tom Holland is their son, Telemachus. Zendaya plays the goddess Athena, Charlize Theron the nymph Calypso and Samantha Morton the witch Circe. Robert Pattinson plays the suitor Antinous and John Leguizamo the swineherd Eumaeus.
Lupita Nyong'o plays both Helen of Troy and her sister Clytemnestra. Himesh Patel plays Eurylochus, one of Odysseus's companions. Benny Safdie plays Agamemnon, the Greek commander at Troy.
What the poem and the finds show
The Credits calls Homer's poem 3,000 years old. That is a round figure. Scholars usually date the Odyssey to around the late 8th or early 7th century BC.
The story is set earlier, in the years after the Trojan War. Ancient Greek writers dated that war to around the 12th century BC, in what archaeologists call the Late Bronze Age. The mound of Hisarlik in north-west Turkey is widely identified as Troy. Archaeologists have excavated it since the 1870s.
Mycenae, the city Homer gives to Agamemnon, was one of the great palace centres of Late Bronze Age Greece. The poem was composed centuries after that world ended. It mixes details from different periods. Scholars have also long debated whether modern Ithaca is the island Homer describes.
The Credits names no historians or archaeologists who advised on the film. It reports no scholarly comment on how closely the film follows the poem or the archaeological evidence.
Sources
- The Odyssey: how Christopher Nolan turned a 3,000-year-old epic poem into a record-breaking blockbuster (Motion Picture Association)
Spotted a mistake? Tell the editor about a spelling error or a fact that is wrong. We correct stories openly.
Readers' picks show on the front page.
Follow @AncientHeraldHQ on X for the day's finds as they come in.
Comments
House rules. Stay on the subject, be kind to other readers and say where your facts come from. No advertising and no personal attacks. The editor reads along and hides comments that break these rules.
Loading comments…