Christopher Nolan’s 'The Odyssey' passes $1.35B as highest grossing movie
- By Sarah Brohi -
- Aug 21, 2026
Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is officially titled as the highest-grossing R-rated movie of all time.
In the latest update, Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey officially became the highest-grossing R-rated movie of all time, surpassing Deadpool & Wolverine‘s global total of $1.338 billion with a worldwide haul now standing at roughly $1.352 billion, according to Universal Pictures.
The film had trailed the Marvel blockbuster by about $47 million just days earlier, but a strong release in China closed the gap. Its domestic total now sits at $516.3 million, with international box office climbing past $835 million, and the film remains in theaters, meaning its final tally could still grow.
Read More: Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Odyssey’ crosses $1B at box office
The milestone is especially notable given the disparity in scale between the two productions: The Odyssey was made for a reported $250 million, compared to Deadpool & Wolverine‘s combined production and marketing budget of $537 million.
Unlike the Marvel film, which leaned heavily on franchise nostalgia and two established characters, Nolan’s nearly three-hour adaptation of Homer’s ancient epic had no built-in fanbase to draw from, relying instead on Nolan’s directorial reputation, an ensemble cast including Matt Damon,
Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway and Robert Pattinson, and a production built entirely around IMAX cameras. The film has also surpassed The Dark Knight Rises to become Nolan’s highest-grossing movie ever.
Ryan Reynolds, Deadpool’s star and a producer on the Marvel film, graciously recognised the record on social media, writing, “Congratulations to the entire cast and crew of The Odyssey for becoming the highest-grossing R-rated movie of all time. That is one helluva car,” alongside a mashup video pairing a Deadpool & Wolverine fight scene with a shot of Damon’s Odysseus.
Nolan has credited the runaway success of his previous film, Oppenheimer, with giving him the creative capital to pursue a project of this scale, telling Jon Stewart in a recent interview, “Coming out of my last film, Oppenheimer had way more success than I think we had any right to expect.”