Christopher Nolan‘s “The Odyssey” will open on greater than 20,000 screens throughout mainland China, together with some 90% of the territory’s Imax footprint of practically 800 websites, distributor information exhibits.
Presale field workplace of the Common title reached RMB39.5 million ($5.9 million) as of August 12 (Beijing time), with mixed preview and presale grosses hitting RMB91 million ($13.5 million) forward of the movie’s Aug. 14 broad launch within the Center Kingdom, per ticketing company Maoyan.
Maoyan Professional is forecasting a gap day gross of RMB70.4 million ($10.4 million) for the movie. The Imax allocation will maintain at the same time as “Spider-Man: Model New Day” continues its profitable run in Chinese language theaters, with no discount deliberate to “The Odyssey’s” display screen rely, Imax has confirmed.
Nolan traveled to China with producer Emma Thomas and stars Matt Damon and Charlize Theron for a multi-stop publicity tour. The go to opened with a photocall at a Beijing courtyard centered on a maple tree greater than a 100 years outdated, the place Thomas, Theron and Damon stunned Nolan with a birthday cake and led a serenade for the director. Nolan accomplished two main print interviews on the cease, whereas Theron and Damon met with 4 content material creators whose mixed social media following exceeds 100 million.
The tour continued with a fan screening at Common Beijing Resort’s Common CityWalk Cinema, organized with the platform Pink Notice, China’s reply to Instagram. A whole bunch of influencers and movie followers attended a Q&A with the expertise, and the occasion generated greater than 10 trending matters on the platform inside hours.
Nolan, Thomas, Damon and Theron additionally attended “The Odyssey’s” China premiere on July 30 on the China Nationwide Movie Museum on an Imax GT-certified display screen. A photocall in entrance of roughly 500 followers and media shops preceded a moderated Q&A for press and VIPs, and the hashtags #TheOdysseyMovie and #TheOdysseyChinaPremiere trended on Weibo inside two hours. The expertise additionally took half in a press and content material creator junket with an estimated mixed attain of 1 billion viewers, readers and customers.
A separate sit-down in the course of the journey, Nolan’s interview with Beijing-based podcaster Zhong Shu, has since gone viral on-line, drawing reward for its philosophical depth on the movie’s themes.
Adrian Tong, senior analyst at analysis firm Media Companions Asia, factors to Nolan’s personal China field workplace historical past because the related yardstick. “Oppenheimer” completed round $61 million in mainland China, with “Tenet” touchdown in related territory, and Maoyan logged greater than 250,000 want-to-see registrations for “The Odyssey” earlier than presales opened. “A nine-figure run could be distinctive,” Tong tells Selection, since little from Hollywood exterior the largest franchise titles reaches that degree in China anymore.
Close to-total Imax community commitments are often reserved for the largest native titles, making the allocation for a Hollywood movie uncommon within the present market. “Nevertheless it’s the rational response to observable demand, plus favorable economics,” Tong says, pointing to how Nolan’s movies persistently over-index on the Imax format in China. “In China they’re not likely separable.”
“Spider-Man: Model New Day” has surpassed $200 million in China in 16 days of launch, although no different newly launched worldwide movie in 2026 has approached that mark, with the remainder of the Hollywood slate touchdown principally within the RMB100 million to RMB310 million ($14.8 million to $46 million) vary. Tong says the market hasn’t closed to Hollywood a lot as turn into extraordinarily selective, including, “the trail to sustainable blockbuster success is now narrower and much steeper to navigate.”
