Jon Bernthal’s breakout role as Shane Walsh in The Walking Dead catapulted his career to unexpected new heights. Now, the iconic star will have an incredible summer courtesy of his appearance in two very ambitious movies: Spider-Man: Brand New Day and The Odyssey.
While audiences are still awaiting the release of the wall-crawler’s upcoming adventure, Christopher Nolan’s latest film has already hit theaters, and it is making waves for all the right reasons. For starters, The Odyssey was released to astonishing critical success, currently holding a 95% approval score on Rotten Tomatoes. Fan reception has also been extremely positive, with people agreeing that this is one of Nolan’s best projects to date (which is impressive given how many hits he has under his belt). But if that wasn’t enough, the film is already on track to break an impressive box-office record during its opening weekend alone.
The Odyssey is tracking to have the biggest box-office opening for any non-franchised, live-action movie ever
Unsurprisingly, The Odyssey didn’t need a wooden horse to win the box-office war. Nolan’s acclaimed film earned $51 million domestically in the US during Friday screenings alone. While initial projections estimated The Odyssey would earn $90 to $100 million during its three opening days, those figures have been blown out of the water by Poseidon himself, and now the movie is tracking to earn $120 million by Sunday. To put into perspective how big this figure would be, here are the top eight domestic movie openings of 2026 as a whole:
- Toy Story 5 – $159.6 million
- The Super Mario Galaxy Movie – $131.7 million
- The Odyssey – $120 million (tracking)
- Michael – $97.2 million
- Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu – $81.6 million
- Backrooms – $81.4 million
- Project Hail Mary – $80.5 million
- The Devil Wears Prada 2 – $76.7 million
The Odyssey may not be at the very top of the list, but there are two key things to take into consideration here. First, Nolan’s Greek epic is R-rated, which means it loses the children’s demographic, which is the primary target of films like Toy Story 5 and The Super Mario Galaxy Movie. Furthermore, the top two movies on the list are animated projects that are part of a pre-established franchise with at least one entry before them.
Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey. Photo by Universal Pictures.
Things are looking even better at the worldwide box office, as The Odyssey is tracking to gross $257.8 million during its first three days in theaters. This would make it the biggest opening ever for a live-action film that isn’t part of a franchise, surpassing the very first Avatar film, which grossed $242.5 million worldwide during the same timeframe.
With a worldwide opening weekend of $257.8 million, The Odyssey would also become the highest-grossing project in Christopher Nolan’s career, becoming more successful than every entry in The Dark Knight trilogy and other highly acclaimed titles like Oppenheimer, Inception, Interstellar, and more. Needless to say, Universal Studios struck gold with its latest release.
Part of the reason audiences were compelled to see The Odyssey in the first place (aside from its Oscar-winning director and the source material on which it is based) was its all-star cast. Matt Damon brings Odysseus to life, with Anne Hathaway portraying his wife, Penelope, and Tom Holland playing his son, Telemachus. Furthermore, other big names like Zendaya, Robert Pattinson, Charlize Theron, Elliot Page, Lupita Nyong’o, and more were also part of the cast.
Jon Bernthal did not have a lot of screen time as Menelaus, the king of Sparta, in The Odyssey. However, his chemistry with Tom Holland was off-the-charts, and fortunately for us, this iconic pair will also steal the spotlight in Spider-Man: Brand New Day (which is already breaking box-office records as well). There’s no denying it: This is Bernthal’s summer.
The Odyssey is now playing in theaters.
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