August brought another standout weekend at the box office after Spider-Man: Brand New Day swung closer to $2 billion in theaters, and The Odyssey became the highest-grossing Christopher Nolan movie of all time.
Where to begin? The Tom Holland Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) movie didn’t just web up another spectacular weekend; it managed to secure the third-best second weekend in domestic box office history with an estimated $145 million. With its total now at $655 million domestically and $1.01 billion internationally, Spider-Man: Brand New Day stands at a whopping $1.67 billion worldwide – and it’s still just getting started.
With many more weekends in theaters to come, $2 billion seems all but certain for the Destin Daniel Cretton-directed superhero flick. Reaching that number will put it past the lifetime gross of its predecessor, Spider-Man: No Way Home, but where it will fall after that is anyone’s guess. Should it prove to have strong staying power, it won’t be long before the new Spider-Man movie is in the same conversation as projects like Avatar and Avengers: Endgame. Past that, it becomes about the never-before-reached $3 billion mark.
There’s still a long, long way to go before we can start entertaining that idea, though. In the meantime, Spider-Man isn’t the only big winner at the box office. Nolan, the director behind classics like Interstellar and the gritty Dark Knight trilogy, has a new heavy hitter under his belt with The Odyssey.
His near-three-hour retelling of Homer’s 3,000-year-old Greek poem turned heads when it brought in a historic $264 million worldwide in its opening weekend, and now, with $1.104 billion, it has become his highest-grossing movie of all time. The previous record holder in his catalog was The Dark Knight Rises with $1.084 billion, with The Dark Knight sitting just below that at $1.008 billion.
Meanwhile, Imax reported that, at $289.3 million in its theaters worldwide, the movie is now its highest-grossing project of all time, too. It’s fitting for a few reasons but especially makes sense considering Nolan filmed the entire thing using Imax technology.
The Odyssey’s place atop Nolan’s filmography was written in the stars early, with the spot seeming all the more likely when it passed the coveted $1 billion milestone just last week. Even more remarkable is the fact that this is only the star-studded movie’s fourth weekend in theaters. After dropping just 38% this time around (its second weekend dropped only 19%), Nolan’s high score is sure only to climb in the days and weeks ahead.
IGN has delivered reviews for both of this weekend’s biggest films. The Odyssey returned an 8/10, with our review saying it “may not be a perfect movie, but it’s a pretty great moviegoing experience all the same.” Our Spider-Man: Brand New Day review, meanwhile, earned it a 7/10. At the time, we said it “effectively refocuses on the most reliable pillars of the webslinger: battling inner turmoil, swinging around NYC saving the day, and looking cool while doing so.”
The Odyssey stars Matt Damon as Odysseus, Anne Hathaway as Penelope, Robert Pattinson as Antinous, Holland as Telemachus, Zendaya as Athena, Jon Bernthal as Menelaus, and many, many more. Holland, Zendaya, and Bernthal all also star in Spider-Man: Brand New Day, with their co-stars in that project including Sadie Sink as…someone, Jacob Batalon as Ned, Michael Mando as Scorpion/Mac Gargan, and Liza Colón-Zayas as Detective Jean DeWolff.
Also new in theaters this weekend are One Night Only and Super Troopers 3. The former brought in an estimated domestic weekend total of $5.7 million, while the latter pulled $4 million. They came in third and fourth at the box office, respectively.
For more, you can read about where Spider-Man: Brand New Day falls into the MCU rankings on Rotten Tomatoes. You can also read about how translator Emily Wilson feels about Nolan’s work on The Odyssey.
Photo by Prodip Guha/Getty Images.
Michael Cripe is a freelance writer with IGN. He’s best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).
