‘The Odyssey’ Demolishes Peter Jackson’s Biggest Lord of the Rings Hit at the Box Office
Christopher Nolan's mythological epic "The Odyssey" has overtaken every instalment of Peter Jackson's original Lord of the Rings trilogy at the North American box office, cementing its status as one of the year's biggest cinema hits. The film managed to hold strong in its third weekend even as Marvel's "Spider-Man: Brand New Day" opened to a huge debut, with the two films combining to push the US box office to a record $430 million in a single weekend.
The Odyssey earned more than $50 million domestically in its third weekend and has now passed $900 million worldwide on a reported $250 million budget, putting it on course to cross $1 billion by the following weekend. That would make it Nolan's third film to reach the billion-dollar mark, after The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises, and it is expected to eventually surpass both. The film has been buoyed by strong reviews, holding a 94% critics' score and 97% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes.
- "The Odyssey" overtakes Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films at the box office
- Nears $1 billion worldwide, Nolan's third film to hit that mark
- US box office hits record $430 million weekend alongside new Spider-Man film
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The Odyssey is a big-budget film directed by Christopher Nolan, known for films such as Inception and the Dark Knight trilogy, loosely based on the ancient Greek epic poem attributed to Homer. It stars a large ensemble cast and was made on a reported budget of around $250 million. Since its release, it has been playing in cinemas across North America and worldwide, competing for audiences against other major releases in what has become a busy period for the film industry.
Box office figures are widely used as a measure of a film's commercial success, tracking how much money a film earns from ticket sales in cinemas. Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy, released in the early 2000s and based on J.R.R. Tolkien's novels, has long been held up as a benchmark for large-scale fantasy and adventure filmmaking, so comparisons to its box office performance carry weight in the industry. Passing the billion-dollar mark worldwide is generally seen as a significant milestone, achieved by only a small number of films each year.
Christopher Nolan has previously had two films, The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises, reach this billion-dollar milestone, making him a director closely associated with box office success. The wider context also includes competition from other major studios, such as Marvel, whose films regularly draw large opening-weekend crowds. Together, these factors help explain why industry observers are paying close attention to how The Odyssey performs against both past and present blockbusters.