Nolan's Odyssey trailer breaks records — $250M epic lands July 2026
Christopher Nolan's next film has a trailer, a date, and already sold-out presale seats. The Odyssey — a $250 million adaptation of Homer's epic — dropped its first full trailer and promptly generated 121.4 million views in 24 hours, making it the eighth most-viewed trailer of 2025. IMAX 70mm advance tickets, released a full year before the film opens, sold out across 22 theaters in under 12 hours, pulling in $1.5 million before a single frame has screened publicly.
The scale
Shot entirely on IMAX 70mm cameras — a first for any narrative feature — The Odyssey is the most expensive film of Nolan's career, surpassing Oppenheimer, which grossed $975 million worldwide. The trailer delivers exactly what that budget implies: sweeping location footage from Greece, Italy, Sicily, Morocco, Iceland, Scotland, and the Western Sahara, plus a glimpse of the Cyclops that Odysseus will apparently have to fight. Nolan's approach is described as grounded and realistic rather than fantasy-driven — closer in spirit to Oppenheimer than to Clash of the Titans.
Matt Damon plays Odysseus. The ensemble around him includes Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Zendaya, Lupita Nyong'o, Robert Pattinson, Charlize Theron, Jon Bernthal, and Elliot Page, among others. The story picks up where the Iliad ends: the Trojan War is over, and Odysseus spends ten years finding his way home while his wife Penelope waits. Per Wikipedia), principal photography ran from February to August 2025.
What to expect at the box office
The Odyssey opens July 17, 2026, via Universal Pictures — a global simultaneous release with IMAX 70mm as the priority format. That date puts it in direct competition with Spider-Man: Brand New Day, setting up the kind of summer box-office clash the industry hasn't seen since Barbie vs. Oppenheimer in 2023. The trailer's 24-hour view count beat Wicked: For Good (113 million) and roughly doubled the first Oppenheimer trailer — a strong signal that audience appetite for Nolan-scale event cinema is intact, per Variety. If you want an IMAX 70mm seat for opening weekend, booking now is not an overreaction.
