Christopher Nolan's "The Odyssey" opened powerfully in North America, taking $51 million on its first day from 3,919 screens. The strong debut has led analysts to raise their weekend forecasts to as much as $120 million, which would make it Nolan's biggest opening since "The Dark Knight Rises" in 2012 and put it among the year's top-grossing releases alongside "Toy Story 5" and "The Super Mario Galaxy Movie".

The $250 million epic, based on Homer's ancient Greek poem, stars Matt Damon as Odysseus alongside an ensemble including Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Zendaya, Charlize Theron and Robert Pattinson. Its opening day alone already exceeds the entire opening weekend of Nolan's "Interstellar" ($47.5 million), and current projections surpass the opening weekend of his Oscar-winning "Oppenheimer" ($82 million). Elsewhere in the chart, Disney's "Moana" remake struggled in its second weekend with just $5.5 million on Friday, putting it on track for losses of around $100 million, while "Minions & Monsters" held steady in third place, nearing a $136 million domestic total after three weekends.