The Odyssey film is sending fans back to Homer's poem
Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey film has become one of 2026's biggest box-office hits and is driving fans back to Homer's original Greek poem, with UK print sales up 700% last week versus 2025 and audiobook listening surging among Gen Z and millennial audiences worldwide.
Key Takeaways
- The Odyssey opened to about $264 million globally, including roughly $52 million from IMAX screens.
- UK print sales of The Odyssey jumped 700% last week year on year, with nearly 8,000 copies sold.
- Spotify listening rose about 680% after release, with over 80% of listeners Gen Z or millennials.
- Translator Emily Wilson welcomed the renewed interest but said Nolan missed themes essential to the poem.
- IMAX CEO Rich Gelfond said ticket demand for the film has been even crazier than he expected.
Why are fans returning to Homer after the film?
According to the BBC, Nolan's big-screen take on Homer's epic has not only packed cinemas but also sparked fresh curiosity about the source poem.
NielsenIQ BookData figures cited by the BBC show almost 8,000 UK print copies sold last week, lifting the year-to-date total to 47,000 — a 95% year-on-year rise. Waterstones called demand "phenomenal," especially for Emily Wilson's 2017 translation, which Nolan has cited as one of his sources.
Audio is booming too. Sir Stephen Fry's reading is in the Spotify UK audiobook top 10, while Sir Ian McKellen's narration has entered the US equivalent. Variety, cited by the BBC, reported Spotify listening up about 680% since the Friday release.
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How big was The Odyssey at the box office?
The three-hour epic, starring Matt Damon, Tom Holland, and Anne Hathaway, took $264 million globally in its opening weekend, including $52 million on giant Imax screens, the BBC reported. Business Insider put the domestic opening at $124.5 million and the global haul at $264.1 million — the third-best domestic opening of the year.
It was the first theatrical release shot entirely with Imax 70mm film cameras. IMAX said the format earned $51.8 million globally, more than 20% of the worldwide opening. Just 41 IMAX 70mm screens generated $6.3 million, averaging about $153,000 per screen.
In the UK, the film took £12.6 million and posted the second-biggest opening weekend of the year so far, behind Toy Story 5. It also set a UK record for highest opening-weekend Imax takings, Screen Daily told the BBC. CEO Rich Gelfond told Business Insider that competition for IMAX tickets was more extreme than he imagined, with London's BFI already selling out shows weeks ahead.
What do scholars say about Nolan's adaptation?
Wilson told the Associated Press she celebrates that more people are aware of The Odyssey, yet felt Nolan was "trying to pack everything in while missing themes that were essential to the poem." She questioned omissions such as Zeus and Poseidon on screen (Athena is played by Zendaya), a thinned-out Penelope, and what she called "incoherent" messaging on war and cowardice.
Fellow translator Daniel Mendelsohn praised Nolan's "great visual panache" but argued the film's Odysseus lacks cleverness, humor, and wily charm — remade, he wrote, in the image of Nolan's haunted protagonists. Graphic novelist Gareth Hinds said sales of his Odyssey adaptation also rose and called the result a "powerful film," while noting how far the hero's character has shifted.
Wilson still recommended seeing it — preferably in a theater. A Nolan spokesperson did not immediately respond to AP's request for comment.