Box Office: ‘The Odyssey’ $18M Wednesday 2nd Best for Christopher Nolan

Universal’s The Odyssey continued to flex its muscles at the domestic box office with a massive $18.05M Wednesday which was -16% from its $21.4M Tuesday.

Yesterday repped the second best Wednesday ever for director Christopher Nolan at the domestic box office after Dark Knight‘s Wednesday back on July 23, 2008 which grossed $18.3M, and ahead of 2012’s Dark Knight Rises which made $13.77M. The six day-running total now for the feature take of Homer’s poem is $181.6M. As we told you, the pic’s second weekend could file between $61M-$74M and might outstrip the second weekend of one or both of Nolan’s Dark Knight and Dark Knight Rises which respectively posted $75.1M and $62.1M.

The Odyssey has been outpacing Nolan’s previous movie, 2023’s Oppenheimer, that Universal title’s Wednesday being $10.6M with a six-day running cume of $117.8M. Odyssey remains +54% ahead of Oppenheimer, that multi-Oscar winning biopic ending its run in North America at $330M.

This weekend The Odyssey faces no major studio wide foes as they opted to stay out of the pic’s way. Bleecker Street has the big screen take of the filmed Broadway show Hadestown which could do $8M-$10M, while it’s low single digit starts for Neon’s Nicolas Winding Refn genre pic Her Private Hell at 700 sites and IFC’s dialogue-less noir Motor City which is booked at 1,600 locations.

The Odyssey, of course, hangs onto all its PLF and Imax screens this weekend which repped 52% of its $123.5M opening or $64.2M.

Nolan’s highest grossing movie at the domestic box office is Dark Knight with $534.9M.