Christopher Nolan’s audacious bet to bring Homer’s “The Odyssey” to the silver screen is paying off in gold. The stock for Universal’s parent company Comcast got a short-term boost of about 2% from the massive early box-office returns. So did movie theater companies including AMC Entertainment (up 33%) and Cinemark (up 6%) and premium film format provider Imax (up 15%).
Picking hits can be a risky game, but based on his recent track record, Nolan may prove to be a unicorn: someone you can make a big bet on and be reasonably sure you can get a return. But more importantly, the success of the film has investors bullish about the broader box office in the second half — and how that benefits players in the industry.
“I think this is a powerful moment,” James Lindsay, managing director at investment bank LionTree, told The Ledger. “The value of storytelling is up again. You can back a good director. That’s the bet they made.”
Other potential blockbusters didn’t pay off in the second quarter, with “Moana” and “Disclosure Day” underperforming. But the success of “The Odyssey” will keep moviegoers in theaters.
Meanwhile, one analyst sees good reasons why Netflix’s falling stock may be a buy, and the Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery takeover saga continued.
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Jon Lafayette
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THE DEEP DIVE
Is the ‘The Oydssey’ a Blip or Sign of Things to Come?
Christopher Nolan’s smash hit “The Odyssey” has Wall Street convinced the movie business will continue to generate higher revenues and rising stock prices.
“We’re seeing content, particularly premium film, continue to perform, and I think that is going to start to restore confidence to the major studios,” said LionTree’s Lindsay. “We think capital is going to flow back into the creative industry.”
Lindsay expects a wave of merger and acquisition activity driven by a desire to scale up production, bolster IP and ensure they’re capable of putting out more tentpole films. Individual investors also might find investing in films more attractive.
- “The Odyssey” generated $124.5 million in domestic box office and $264 million globally in its opening weekend, the most for any live-action film this year.
- Analyst Robert Fishman of MoffettNathanson increased his estimate for full-year box office to $9.6 billion.
- The success of “The Odyssey” might be the beginning of a trend as studios take bigger swings knowing that the audience will show up for hits.
- Exhibitors are benefiting from a tentpole hit, especially when they drive moviegoers to
pbuy tickets to premium, large format showings.
In the longer term, the cost of producing films, even those on the scale of “The Odyssey,” will come down, thanks in part to AI. “My optimistic lens on it is that the costs coming down actually allows people to take more risk and be more creative. You can experiment a little bit more,” Lindsay said.
Robert Fishman, an analyst at MoffettNathanson, said big-budget films like Nolan’s “highlight studios’ commitment to theatrical, which should lead to a stronger supply side to meet audience demand.”
Asked if “The Odyssey’s” strong showing was a blip or sign of a future box office bonanza, Drew Crum, an analyst for B. Riley Securities, told TheWrap he wasn’t certain.
“I wonder if we’d be having a different conversation if it were not for ‘Obsession’ and ‘Backrooms,’” he said.
Those low-budget films were the difference between the second-quarter domestic box office being up 7% and down 2% so far this year.
In a note, Crum said that the second-half domestic box office had gotten off to a slow start with “Supergirl,” “Minions & Monsters” and “Moana” disappointing (competition from the World Cup didn’t help). Crum cut his forecast for the third-quarter box office to $2.55 billion from $2.7 billion, although the revised figure still reflects an 8% increase from a year ago.
Spider-Man Bump
Crum is bullish that upcoming films like “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” could continue to fill seats in large-format venues.
B. Riley is neutral on AMC with a $2.25 price target and has a buy recommendation for Imax with a $48 price target.
Fishman also expects big ticket films will continue to boost the industry in the second half of the year. “We believe the home runs are set to continue next year,” he added. “In addition, the outperformance of non-franchise films plus YouTube-to-big screen breakouts reinforces our optimism in the structural momentum behind the box office more broadly.”
Despite noise around some films that didn’t do as well as expected, Fishman has increased his estimate for full-year box office to $9.6 billion.
Fishman has a “buy” recommendation on Cinemark Holdings, with a $34 target price.
EARNINGS
The opening of “The Odyssey” came on the heels of a strong second quarter at the box office. Earlier this week, AMC Entertainment reported that its second quarter was the best in the company’s 106-year history, with record revenues and earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization.
“What a quarter, what a quarter, what a quarter,” CEO Adam Aron enthused on AMC’s earnings call with analysts.
Big movies like “The Odyssey” generate a premium as viewers opt for large screen formats including Imax. At AMC, large formats represent 8% of its screen count, but last weekend they generated 50% of its total gross ticket sales, Aron said. He added that AMC could “affordably increase” its number of large-format auditoriums by 100 to 250 over the next two to four years.
“We believe that movie theaters will enjoy in the full 12 months of 2026, their strongest yet post-pandemic year at both the domestic box office and at the global box office,” he said.
Imax reported better-than-expected second-quarter revenue and second-quarter earnings on Thursday. After “The Odyssey’s” opening weekend, Imax saw record sales of $22 million for Monday and Tuesday, and $60 million in presales for future showings. Those numbers are likely to make analysts boost their revenue estimates for the third quarter.
Box office returns from “The Odyssey” aren’t reflected in second-quarter results, since it premiered this weekend. Those ticket sales will show up in third-quarter revenue.
Other earnings
- Peacock finally turned its first profit as Comcast prepares its NBCUniversal split
- Alphabet’s AI costs keep spiraling higher
DEAL SHEET
- Film Services International agreed to acquire Media Guarantors from insurance broker CAC Group and merge it with its Film Finances unit in a move that consolidates the global completion bond business for independent films. Financial terms were not disclosed. Media Guarantors founder Fred Milstein will be CEO of the combined companies.
- Primordial Soup, the AI-based studio venture led by director Darren Aronofsky, plans to raise $15 million in new equity according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing. The director of films including last year’s “Caught Stealing” and his producing partner Dylan Golden are listed as executive officers. The company also disclosed it has already sold over $11 million in equity since July 1. The filing said that the studio was looking to hire people for several positions.
- Netflix paid $587 million for InterPositive, Ben Affleck’s AI startup, according to an SEC filing. The cash transaction was announced in March.
WRAP 20 INDEX
Here’s how the companies in our Wrap 20 Index performed this week.
FINANCIAL ROUNDUP
Netflix and Sell?
After releasing second-quarter earnings last week, Netflix shares continued to fall. The streamer’s stock has plunged from a 52-week high of $126.71 in September to under $70 this week. At this price, Robert Fishman of MoffettNathanson sees the stock as a buy, with a target price of $100.
“Investor focus around growth in viewing hours remains, but Netflix continues to prove revenue growth is not directly correlated with engagement,” Fishman said in a new report.
Fishman said that there is evidence that Netflix’s focus on quality, quantity and variety is paying off.
- Netflix garnered 4.4 billion hours viewed across its portfolio of Emmy-nominated series this season, a 10% increase vs. the first half of 2025 and representing a 4.5% share of total hours viewed.
- Netflix keeps moving further into live programming. The World Baseball Classic (exclusively on Netflix in Japan), “The Roast of Kevin Hart” and WWE events drove only 0.4% of total viewership in the first half; yet he expects flagship live events like additional NFL games in the second half to accelerate advertising and serve as a meaningful subscriber acquisition tool.
- Netflix’s push into creator content is fully underway. Although much of the viewership for this content is not broken out (video podcasts are included in “other”), new creators’ titles are starting to gain momentum.
The Paramount-WBD Saga (Continued)
European Union regulators approved Paramount’s acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery after Paramount said it would pull out of its film distribution joint venture with Universal. It also made other commitments related to theatrical film distribution in the region.
But in the U.K., the Culture Secretary has said she is “minded to intervene” in the deal, and in the U.S., attorneys general from 12 states have filed an antitrust suit and won a 14-day temporary restraining order barring the companies from closing the transaction (which was extended another two weeks on Thursday). Paramount asked the judge in the case to hold a three-day evidentiary hearing in August before a decision is made on a longer prelimiary injunction.
Time is of the essence for Paramount. If the deal doesn’t close by September 30, Paramount has agreed to pay WBD stockholders a 25 cents per share per share “ticking fee,” which adds up to about $650 million per quarter.
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