The Odyssey rides star power and rave reviews to a $100M+ opening weekend; set to top Oppenheimer as the biggest Nolan opening since The Dark Knight Rises

The Odyssey is finally here, and it’s gonna be big. The only question is how big. Opening weekend predictions across the web range from a low of $85M to as high as $130M. Based on presales and tracking, we see it right around $100M, but it really depends on whether people will be happy to see it on regular screens, since IMAX and PLF screens are basically completely booked already for the weekend. There’s a chance people wait to see it on the best screen possible, which may slightly deflate the opening (although in that case we’re still seeing easily $90M+), and if that doesn’t happen it could reach higher, to $110M or so. The one swing factor had been reviews, and they just dropped this morning at a magical 98% from 110 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. That’s the kind of number that gets people out of their houses and into the cinema, regardless of what size screen they can get tickets for.

The comp everyone reaches for is Oppenheimer, which opened to $82.4M on this same July weekend in 2023 and legged to $330M. Nolan’s post-Batman openings have climbed every time, from Interstellar’s $47.5M to Dunkirk’s $50.5M to Oppenheimer’s $82.4M, and The Odyssey should continue that trend and clear all of them for his biggest debut since The Dark Knight Rises in 2012. The premium-format angle is the tell: nearly half of Oppenheimer’s opening came from PLF and IMAX, and Nolan owns every large-format screen in the country for two weekends before Spider-Man: Brand New Day takes them on July 31, although we’d expect The Odyssey to reclaim some after two weekends since the demand to see it in IMAX is so high. It’s basically impossible to find any prime-time IMAX seats across LA and NY locations, not just on weekends but any night of the week. With all of that said, we expect over $100M this weekend and a long, healthy run deep into August, easily clearing $300M domestic. This is the win July needed.

Moana takes #2, but that is the ceiling of the good news. It opened to just $43.1M last weekend, the second-worst debut of any Disney live-action remake, on a $250M budget, and now it faces a second weekend with no holiday to prop it up. The saving grace is the A- CinemaScore and 90% audience score against a brutal 34% from critics, plus the fact that The Odyssey pulls adults and leaves the family lane wide open. If it can manage to drop less than 50%, that would be very good news here. Anything over $20M would be good, giving it a weekend around $25M and a 10-day cume near $85M. If it can find some stabilization and become the default family choice for the rest of the summer, it can still shoot for around $135M domestically. Not enough to save it, but at least not in the same category as Supergirl and Masters of the Universe.

Minions & Monsters really needs a stabilizing hold this weekend. It sits at $108.9M through two weekends after a $37M debut, running roughly 47% behind Despicable Me 4 at the same stage. It’ll be hoping for a hold of about 40% or so for $13M, pushing it past $120M domestically. The $200M dream is gone, and this is now tracking toward $150M to $175M domestic, the lowest total in franchise history by a wide margin. As we already said though, this is already profitable and worldwide should still easily clear $400M. The franchise needs a rebound after this, but is in no way dead.

Toy Story 5 has already crossed $400M and should add another $13M or so in weekend five, getting it to around $425M and just a few days from passing The Super Mario Galaxy Movie’s $430M to become the top domestic grosser of the year. That’s a position it will hold for just a few weeks, until Spider-Man blows past it, probably within its first 10 days. It should find itself headed to a total between $450M and $475M domestic, a jump up from the previous franchise high of $434M (Toy Story 4).

Evil Dead Burn hits the wall that gets every horror opener. It debuted to $13.7M, running 44% behind Evil Dead Rise’s $24.5M bow in 2023, and horror second weekends are often unforgiving. Rise itself fell 56%, and this is going up against intense competition from The Odyssey, so expect something worse here, a drop near 65% to roughly $4.5–5M and a cume around $22M. That points to a final around $30M, well short of Rise’s $67M domestic, and a quiet result for a title Warner Bros. hoped would hold the horror slot into August.