{"id":559088,"date":"2026-07-20T13:59:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T13:59:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/559088\/"},"modified":"2026-07-20T13:59:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T13:59:08","slug":"the-odyssey-smashes-star-wars-record-over-bfi-imax-opening-weekend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/559088\/","title":{"rendered":"‘The Odyssey’ Smashes ‘Star Wars’ Record Over BFI IMAX Opening Weekend"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tAnd so continues The Odyssey<\/a>\u2018s record-breaking debut: The British Film Institute\u2019s Imax theater, the U.K.\u2019s largest screen, has had its best-ever opening weekend at the box office.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe BFI Imax was the number one Imax venue in both the U.K. and international<\/a> markets from July 17-19 as Christopher Nolan<\/a>\u2018s three-hour epic \u2014\u00a0shot entirely with Imax cameras \u2014 finally released.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe three-day gross came in at \u00a3219,867 ($296,147) from a single screen, the biggest opening weekend box office result of any Imax venue in the U.K. and abroad. This performance places The Odyssey at the top of the all-time BFI Imax opening weekend box office rankings, surpassing Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017), which previously held the record with a three-day gross of \u00a3216,454. Oppenheimer (2023), Nolan\u2019s last movie, now ranks third, having achieved an opening weekend gross of \u00a3207,677.<\/p>\n

\n\tTo date, BFI Imax has sold more than 82,000 admissions for The Odyssey, generating \u00a32,169,882 ($2.9m) gross in ticket sales and achieving a 94 percent occupancy rate across all showtimes currently on sale, already becoming the venue\u2019s third-highest-grossing film ever.<\/p>\n

\n\tAcross eight weeks, 173 consecutive Imax 70mm screenings have sold out entirely, with audience members traveling to London from as far afield as Singapore, Los Angeles and Toronto to see the film. Additional dates are expected to be added in response to unprecedented global demand, the BFI IMAX said Monday.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAs the only cinema in the U.K. to hold a complete archive of Christopher Nolan\u2019s Imax 70mm filmography, now including The Odyssey, we are proud to be the home of Christopher Nolan on film,\u201d said BFI IMAX program manager Madeleine Mullett. \u201cAcross the BFI, our commitment to preserving and celebrating celluloid, alongside the filmmakers who continue to champion this format, speaks to the enduring power of storytelling and the unique communal experience of seeing film on film. The extraordinary demand for our Imax 70mm presentation of\u00a0The Odyssey, experienced as intended by the filmmakers, is ultimate proof of the appetite audiences have for cinema at its most authentic.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tRead The Hollywood Reporter\u2018s review of the spectacle here<\/a>, or interviews with standout star Samantha Morton<\/a>, Odysseus\u2019 right-hand man Himesh Patel<\/a>, as well as John Leguizamo<\/a> and THR cover star Jon Bernthal<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"And so continues The Odyssey\u2018s record-breaking debut: The British Film Institute\u2019s Imax theater, the U.K.\u2019s largest screen, has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":559089,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[236433,50678,93,61,1042,60,270,83194,303],"class_list":["post-559088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-british-film-institute-bfi","tag-christopher-nolan","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-international","tag-ireland","tag-movies","tag-the-odyssey","tag-united-kingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=559088"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559088\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/559089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=559088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=559088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=559088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}