Sailing into the box office better than Odysseus’ crew could.
The lead-up to The Odyssey saw Christopher Nolan sailing through the turbulent seas of casting backlash, Greek disapproval, Elon Musk nipping, discord servers, Roblox minigames and aura-filled Fortnite skins.
After a wait that made everyone feel like Odysseus’ wife, The Odyssey finally arrived last week, completely smashing the box office with a haul of $264.064 million worldwide.
It’s enough to put the rarest treasures of Troy on the shelf.
With the film reportedly costing $250 million to produce, the release has been heralded as an absolute win at the box office, overtaking The Dark Knight Rises as the biggest opening weekend for Nolan.
Regardless of its box office performance, the film feels like a cinematic achievement in its own right.
It’s a tour de force that stands out as a mastery of everything Nolan has done prior, scaled up to an almost three-hour enthralling tale that guarantees lines outside the bathroom well after the screening has ended.
It has the bleak, endless seascapes of Dunkirk, the non-linearity of Inception, the philosophical internal dialogue of Oppenheimer, the magical/theatrical tactical deception of The Prestige, and the fantasy of ‘running away with Anne Hathaway’ found in The Dark Knight Rises.
Now that the film has wrapped up, Nolan confessed to The Guardian that he would like to take a break from filmmaking that could last ‘at least three years’.
“I’m so desperate to have a period I have nothing to do…I get bored very quickly, and that’s one of the reasons I like to go back to work.
“I get restless. But at the moment, all I can see is just trying to get through this, put the film out and then take a little break.”
At this point, there’s no telling what Christopher Nolan could do next since he’s dabbled with almost every genre.
Based on the Cyclops portion of the film, it would be really interesting to see him take on something that aligns more with horror or thriller.
Imagine that with a Hans Zimmer score.
