UPDATE Aug. 23: Every Nolan record is gone. The Odyssey has passed The Dark Knight as his biggest movie in North America at $539.1 million, with $1.446 billion worldwide.
UPDATE: It’s done. Universal confirmed Sunday that The Odyssey has passed The Dark Knight Rises at $1.1 billion worldwide to become Christopher Nolan’s biggest movie ever.
Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey has crossed $1 billion at the worldwide box office becoming just the 65th movie in history to reach the mark.
The next domino is Nolan’s own record. The Dark Knight Rises sits at $1.085 billion as his highest-grossing movie ever, and it won’t survive the month.
The split stands at $429.7 million domestic and $570.3 million overseas heading into the film’s fourth weekend.
Korea just opened Wednesday, China arrives Aug. 14, and Japan follows Sept. 11, meaning two of the biggest overseas markets haven’t even started counting yet.
Imax auditoriums in key markets like Los Angeles and New York are reportedly near sold out through October, and this weekend the film shares Imax screens stateside with Spider-Man: Brand New Day.
From 700,000 Dislikes To Ten Figures
This is the same movie whose trailer racked up 700,000 dislikes while the online mob declared it dead on arrival. CBN tracked that campaign from 55,000 dislikes on up, and Nolan shrugged the whole thing off.
The audience answered with a score of 96% on Rotten Tomatoes, an ‘A’ CinemaScore, and holds that already took second and third weekend records off The Dark Knight. Even translator Emily Wilson saying she would be ashamed of the movie didn’t slow a single showtime.
Fans are paying $51.75 for Imax 70mm seats to watch an R-rated adaptation of a 3,000-year-old poem. A billion dollars later, the dislike button turned out to be worth exactly nothing.
Five Billion-Dollar Movies In 2026
The Odyssey is the fifth movie of 2026 to hit $1 billion, joining Spider-Man: Brand New Day, Toy Story 5, Michael and The Super Mario Galaxy Movie.
Brand New Day, already the fastest movie ever to $500 million domestic, became the second-fastest to $1 billion worldwide behind only Avengers: Endgame and leads the year at more than $1.1 billion.
For Universal, The Odyssey is the studio’s third billion-dollar movie of the year after Michael ($1.016 billion) and The Super Mario Galaxy Movie ($1.012 billion), and per Deadline, Universal is the first studio to clear $4 billion worldwide in 2026.
Combined, Brand New Day and The Odyssey count $2.1 billion and will soon steamroll the $2.4 billion Barbenheimer posted in 2023, when Barbie did $1.44 billion and Nolan’s Oppenheimer topped out at $975.8 million.
Worth noting: The Odyssey has already blown past Oppenheimer, which never saw ten figures.
Where The Money Is Coming From
Overseas, UK/Ireland leads at $75.3 million, followed by France ($52.4 million), Italy ($46.9 million), Germany ($35.2 million), Australia ($29.8 million), Mexico ($28 million), Spain ($27.3 million), India ($19.6 million), the Netherlands ($13.9 million) and Saudi Arabia ($13.1 million).
With China and Japan unopened, premium screens locked into October, and an awards season push still ahead, the only real question left is the final number. The Dark Knight Rises held the Nolan crown for 14 years. It has days left.
Catch up on the full theatrical run in CBN’s Odyssey guide.
