Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey has taken US$3.7 million in Australia in its first two days, and Thursday's debut was the biggest opening day at the local box office this year, Deadline reported on Saturday morning, Australian time, citing studio figures.
The Homer adaptation, with Matt Damon as Odysseus at the head of a cast that includes Tom Holland, Zendaya and Anne Hathaway, is Nolan's first feature since Oppenheimer won best picture in 2024, and Universal has released it simultaneously across most of the world this weekend.
The Australian numbers run deeper than a good Thursday. Deadline's report puts the opening day 51 per cent above Oppenheimer and 53 per cent above Dune: Part Two, and calls it the biggest opening day any Nolan film has had in this market apart from The Dark Knight Rises. It was also the sixth-biggest opening day Universal has ever had in Australia, per the same report.
The global launch is tracking toward a US$200 million worldwide start. The film's running total reached US$39.8 million by Friday: US$17.6 million from North American previews, the best preview gross of 2026 just ahead of Toy Story 5's US$17.5 million, plus US$22.2 million from 73 international markets across more than 13,300 cinemas. Forbes put weekend projections for the United States alone at about US$117 million over three days; Variety was more cautious at US$100 million-plus. Both are projections, not results.
The 70mm format remains part of the sell. The film is playing on 440 IMAX screens outside North America, seven of them in IMAX 70mm, and IMAX Melbourne, which opened the film in that format this week, is one of only four 70mm sites outside North America and the United Kingdom, according to Deadline's screen count.
One risk to the weekend has already passed, in Deadline's telling. "UK is typically the alpha territory for Nolan, and had the country advanced to the final game of the World Cup on Sunday, we could have seen a ding in ticket sales," the outlet wrote. England lost its semi-final to Argentina on Thursday morning, Australian time, so British screens face no such competition.
All figures are studio and Comscore estimates reported in US dollars; verified Australian dollar actuals come from the local industry tracker Numero early in the week. Those numbers will settle whether the record Thursday was a launch spike or the start of an Oppenheimer-scale run.
