The Odyssey Ticket Frenzy Is Universal's Master Plan Paying Off

Christopher Nolan's next film does not open for another six weeks, and people are already paying hundreds of dollars for a seat. Opening weekend tickets for IMAX 70mm showings of The Odyssey are being listed on eBay for up to $1,000. That is concert scalper territory for a movie nobody has seen yet.

Why are The Odyssey tickets already selling out?

There are only 24 theaters in the country capable of showing The Odyssey the way Nolan shot it: entirely on IMAX film cameras. It is the first major Hollywood feature in history to do that, and the premium seats are already gone.

On June 4th, six weeks ahead of release, Universal and IMAX dropped pre-sale tickets for their premium large format screenings, meaning IMAX 70mm, Dolby, and Prime at AMC. The AMC website crashed almost immediately. Virtual queues stretched past an hour, and by the time most people got through, the good seats had vanished.

The format is the whole point. IMAX 70mm runs at roughly three times the resolution of standard film, and for The Odyssey every frame holds the expanded IMAX aspect ratio. No letterboxing, no black bars top or bottom. Nolan had special camera rigs built to pull this off and shot more than 2 million feet of film. It has simply never been done at this scale.

Those pre-sales were the biggest premium large format numbers AMC has seen for any major studio release since 2022, its best year to date. Wild, unless you are Universal, in which case none of this is a surprise.

The real story is how Universal keeps winning directors

Here is the backstory that matters. Nolan spent nearly two decades at Warner Brothers: the Dark Knight trilogy, Inception, Dunkirk, Tenet. Then in 2021, in the thick of the pandemic, Warner made the impulsive call to dump its entire theatrical slate onto HBO Max, day and date with theaters, without consulting Nolan or the other directors involved.

Nolan was furious. He publicly called HBO Max the worst streaming service and described the move as a bait and switch. So he walked. After a bidding war that reportedly included Sony, Paramount, and Apple, Universal signed him. His first film there was Oppenheimer, which went on to win seven Oscars including Best Director and Best Picture.

Beyond a dump truck of money, Universal offered Nolan the one thing Warner took away: the full theatrical experience. That matters to him more than almost anything.

And this is not new for Universal. Courting and keeping top directors has been part of their playbook for decades. Steven Spielberg has been there since the start; his first film was a Universal picture, and Amblin Entertainment has sat on their lot for 50 years. Now you have Nolan, Spielberg, and a cluster of promising up-and-comers under one roof, not by accident but because Universal made a deliberate bet on filmmakers and on theaters at the exact moment rival studios are still trying to shrink the streaming window. Give great filmmakers a reason to trust you and great movies follow. Thousand-dollar tickets are just what that looks like on the back end.

Weekend box office results

A solid weekend, with the domestic total landing at $183 million. As predicted, Scary Movie took the top spot on brand recognition alone.

#	Film	Weekend
1	Scary Movie	(record franchise opening)
2	Masters of the Universe	$29.3M
3	Backrooms	(down 68%)
4	Obsession	$25.6M
5	The Amazing Digital Circus: The Last Act	Fathom event
6	The Mandalorian and Grogu	down 59%
7	Michael	$7.7M, down 35%
8-10	The Breadwinner, Pressure, The Devil Wears Prada 2

Scary Movie posted the largest opening in the franchise's 26-year history and the best domestic start for a pure comedy since 22 Jump Street back in 2014. The Wayans are back and Paramount has to be thrilled. The open question is whether this signals a comedy comeback or just nostalgia doing the heavy lifting.

Masters of the Universe is the mirror image. That $29.3 million is mild against a $170 million budget, but the reviews are reportedly surprisingly good. Scary Movie made the money with mixed reviews; Masters underperformed with solid ones.

Backrooms fell 68%, a steep drop, though it remains A24's biggest domestic release ever off a $10 million budget. I finally caught it this weekend and, being honest, I was a little let down. Unique concept, but the story felt underdeveloped and I wanted more. Maybe the hype set my expectations too high. If you want the fuller picture on how it got here, I broke down how a YouTuber-made horror film won the box office a few weeks back.

The most interesting story might be right below it. Obsession pulled $25.6 million and this was its first drop, in week four. That is nuts. It is the biggest fourth weekend ever for a horror film, passing The Blair Witch Project, and it is now Focus Features' highest-grossing film worldwide. I still have not seen it, but legs like that tell me it is probably better than Backrooms.

At number five, The Amazing Digital Circus: The Last Act, a four-day event capping an animated series that began on YouTube. Another internet property dragging audiences into theaters.

Worth a shoutout: I saw Power Ballad this weekend and was disappointed it missed the top 10. My theory is the R rating hurt it. It did not need to be rated R, and a PG-13 cut might have cracked the chart. Still a fun little film worth your time.

Industry news: Netflix, AI, and a Christmas sleeper

Netflix is drawing a line in the sand. Chairman Dan Lin said flatly that there is a group of filmmakers who still want theatrical, and those are filmmakers Netflix has accepted it simply will not work with. Bold, and a strange flex while Universal is using theatrical commitment to poach the best directors in the business.

Lionsgate, meanwhile, is going all in on AI. Chairman Michael Burns told a New York press conference that AI will save the studio tens of millions a year, calling it Moore's law on crack. He described using it for specific shots, project previews, and budgeting, pointed to the studio's partnership with AI firm Runway, and even floated the idea of that company eventually acquiring Lionsgate. I am not categorically against AI for logistics and planning, but this guy sounds like he is a little too into it.

The story I am most excited about: Mr. Irrelevant landed a Christmas Day release after near-perfect test scores. It tells the story of John Tuggle, the last pick in the 1983 NFL draft, stars David Corenswet, and is directed by Jonathan Levine. Screenings scored 95 among men over 35, a rare perfect 100 among women over 35, and 92 overall. On a $30 million budget, that is exactly the kind of movie I want more of, and studios do not hand out Christmas dates lightly.

Supergirl's final trailer is the best one yet

The final Supergirl trailer, ahead of its end-of-month release, is the first one that actually got me. It leads with Superman, then pivots hard into galactic, space-set territory that gives off serious Guardians of the Galaxy energy, even though James Gunn did not direct it. Krypto shows up, Jason Momoa looks great, the action and speed-ramped fighting look genuinely cool, and the laser vision beat lands. The earlier trailers were not bad, but this one sells it. I am in.

What is opening this week

The big one is Spielberg's Disclosure Day. The review embargo lifts Tuesday, but early critic reactions are essentially unanimous. Phil Bre of /Film called it the weirdest movie Spielberg has ever made, praised the compositions and David Koepp's high-wire script, called it Emily Blunt's most accomplished performance and John Williams' best score in years. Spielberg, Universal, an original sci-fi film with a roughly $115 million budget. The question is whether it clears $50 million.

Also arriving: Stop That Train, an Adam Shankman comedy with RuPaul shot in just 19 days, though tracking is minimal. And The Furious, a Hong Kong martial arts thriller from Lionsgate that reminds me of The Raid, partly because it shares some of that cast. Made for $20 million, and I am rooting for it.

If you had to run a studio, would you pour money into directors or into recognizable franchises? Universal has clearly picked a side, and right now it is looking like the smart bet. Next week we find out whether Disclosure Day rewards it.