The box office is burning brighter than ever thanks in large part to the $932 million global opening weekend of Sony/Marvel Studios’ “Spider-Man: Brand New Day.” But it is worth noting that even against this historic competition, Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” is still holding very well as it looks to become the highest grossing R-rated film of all time.
In its third weekend in theaters, the Universal blockbuster earned $51 million in the U.S. and Canada and $136 million worldwide, bringing the film’s total to $395 million domestic and $911 million global through Sunday. The film then added $10 million from domestic theaters on its third Monday, even as “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” cleaned up with $47 million.
“We don’t get to the biggest overall weekend of all time without ‘Odyssey’ overperforming,” said Daniel Loria, SVP and Editorial Director at The Boxoffice Company. “It’s not surprising that this film is vastly outperforming ‘Oppenheimer,’ a film that on paper was a much harder sell with quantum physics and a dark ending but still made a billion anyway. So a Nolan film with a much more traditional narrative with dramatic fight scenes is going to leg out much farther.”
At this pace, the film will reach $1 billion worldwide on Friday, passing the global gross of Nolan’s 2023 film “Oppenheimer” and joining the comic book films “Joker” and “Deadpool & Wolverine” as the third billion-dollar release with an R rating.
Hitting that milestone was already guaranteed after the film’s second weekend, which saw an overseas weekend drop of just 3% and a domestic weekend drop of 27%. In the case of the latter, “The Odyssey” set a record for the lowest second weekend percentage drop for a film that opened to more than $100 million in North America, just edging the 27.9% second weekend drop of “Wicked” in Thanksgiving 2024 as it stands on course to pass that film’s $474 million domestic run.
So once it passes $1 billion in its fourth weekend, how much farther can “The Odyssey” go? Domestically, “The Odyssey” has run at a similar pace to the 2022 summer hit “Top Gun: Maverick,” which also passed the $400 million mark on its 18th day of play in North America. But in the weeks ahead, “The Odyssey” may find it difficult to match that film’s unadjusted $718 million domestic cume, which stands as fifth highest of all time.
That’s because “Top Gun: Maverick” was able to take advantage of its Memorial Day weekend launch and leg out through the length of the summer, including through Fathers’ Day and Fourth of July weekend. “The Odyssey” won’t have much competition aside from “Spider-Man” as no film coming out in August is projected for an opening higher than $40 million, but the natural slowdown in overall moviegoing that comes with the end of the summer will take its toll.
Still, “The Odyssey” will remain a popular offering with older moviegoers who tend to come out for films in later weeks, meaning that a $600 million-plus domestic run is still attainable. If the film can leg out past $636 million, it will set the unadjusted domestic record for the highest grossing R-rated film ever, passing “Deadpool & Wolverine.” Already, it is on pace to pass the Marvel film for the global R-rated record of $1.33 billion.
Push a little farther than that, and “The Odyssey” will pass the $1.36 billion total of “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” to become the third highest grossing film ever for Universal Pictures, sitting only behind the unadjusted global totals of $1.67 billion for “Jurassic World” and $1.51 billion for “Furious 7,” both released in 2015.
