The last record on Christopher Nolan’s board just fell.
Per Sunday estimates, Universal’s The Odyssey added $19.5 million from 3,091 theaters in its sixth weekend, a 17 percent drop, and its domestic total now stands at $539.1 million, past The Dark Knight‘s $534.9 million as the biggest movie of Nolan’s career in North America, not adjusted for inflation.
It was already his biggest movie worldwide and the highest-grossing R-rated movie ever.
The domestic crown was the one that held out longest: The Dark Knight had been Nolan’s North American high-water mark since 2008, and The Dark Knight Rises never caught it. The Odyssey did it in 38 days.
The weekend finished third behind Spider-Man: Brand New Day, which took its fourth straight No. 1 with $39 million, and Insidious: Out of the Further, which opened to $25.3 million to give Sony the top two spots.
Worldwide, the sixth global weekend came in at $87.5 million, $68 million of it from 83 overseas territories, and the running total is $1.446 billion per Box Office Mojo: $539.1 million domestic and $907.1 million international.
The Best Hold Of The Run On The Fewest Screens
The weekend-to-weekend drops have gone 27, 43, 38, 26 and now 17 percent, the softest of the run, and it came on the smallest footprint yet after another 126 theaters came off the count.
IMAX is the reason. Per Deadline, IMAX delivered $10 million of the $19.5 million, 52 percent of the weekend, while sharing its screens with Brand New Day.
The domestic IMAX cume is $180.7 million, the biggest domestic IMAX total in history, which works out to one dollar in three of everything The Odyssey has grossed in North America.
How It Caught The Dark Knight
The Odyssey debuted to $123.5 million, third among Nolan’s openers behind The Dark Knight Rises ($160.8 million) and The Dark Knight ($158.4 million), so it started the race $35 million behind the movie it just passed.
The legs made up the difference.
Through six weekends The Odyssey is at 4.4 times its opening. The Dark Knight finished its entire run at 3.4 times, The Dark Knight Rises at 2.8 times, and Oppenheimer at 4.0 times.
Nolan’s domestic top five now reads: The Odyssey $539.1 million, The Dark Knight $534.9 million, The Dark Knight Rises $448.1 million, Oppenheimer $330.1 million, Inception $292.6 million.
The two R-rated, roughly three-hour Universal movies on that list are the two with the best legs, and neither has a cape in it.
Follow the whole run in our complete Odyssey guide.
