The Odyssey just did something at the box office we haven’t seen in 17 years

Christopher Nolan has done it again, but this time he's dragged Homer into the billion-dollar club.

His latest epic, The Odyssey, has officially smashed through the $1 billion mark at the international box office, and here's the kicker: absolutely no film has managed that in nearly two decades without the weight of a franchise behind it. Honestly, in a world where reboots, sequels and IP cannibalism are what usually top the charts, Nolan just waltzed in with ancient poetry and made studio accountants weep with joy.

The Odyssey is the first Hollywood film since Avatar in 2009 to earn $1 billion overseas without being a sequel or remake.

The Numbers, Because That's the Point

If you want receipts, here they are: overseas, Nolan’s The Odyssey has just snagged $1 billion in ticket sales according to Deadline. That doesn't even count its burst at home ($570 million in the US alone). Add it all up, and you’re staring at the director’s highest-grossing project ever—and, if you can believe it, only the 17th film (in the entire history of cinema, no less) to make this much cash abroad. Most of the rest had a little thing called a built-in audience, thanks to prequels or comic-book ancestors.

But here’s what makes this an actual event, not just another “look at all the money” piece: the one and only other Hollywood movie to do the same, sans franchise baggage, was James Cameron's Avatar—and that was seventeen years ago. Makes you wonder what studios are even doing half the time.

No Franchise, No Problem

The boss of Universal Pictures International, Veronika Kwan Vandenberg, was happy to explain how they pulled it off. Her view is that the film just stuck around in cinemas, refusing to go quietly.

Universal Pictures International’s Veronika Kwan Vandenberg said, “From its record-breaking opening to this historic milestone, The Odyssey has captivated audiences around the world.”

Let’s put the rest of these records in one tidy place:

• Biggest R-rated movie ever, beating the likes of Deadpool & Wolverine.
• Nolan’s best international launch, pulling in $264 million just in the opening weekend.
• World domination in IMAX: $457 million globally, giving it the highest-grossing IMAX run of all time.

And for what it’s worth, even the critics are on board. One of ComingSoon’s writers summed it up as “grand, emotional, visually staggering, and relentlessly immersive”—basically, the thing you drag yourself to the cinema for in the hope you’ll see something that isn’t a placeholder for the next spin-off series.