Nolan's Odyssey Hits 20,000 Screens In China, IMAX Is Having Its Best Year In History

Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey opened in mainland China on more than 20,000 screens, with nearly 800 of those being IMAX locations representing approximately 90 percent of China's entire IMAX network, a deployment scale that IMAX China CEO Daniel Manwaring described as the rational response to observable demand. The film, the first ever shot entirely on IMAX 70mm film cameras and starring Matt Damon, Tom Holland, Zendaya, Anne Hathaway, Robert Pattinson, and Charlize Theron, had already crossed $1.1 billion in worldwide gross before a single ticket was sold in China or South Korea. The China release earned $13.5 million in combined preview and presale screenings before its wide opening, while Maoyan, China's largest ticketing platform, recorded over 252,000 user wishlists for the film, the most of any movie in the platform's history. In nearby territories where the film had already opened, IMAX screens were generating over 30 percent of total box office revenue, the same pattern observed with Nolan's Oppenheimer. Manwaring told Variety the anticipation in China was going to be enormous and confirmed the network had no plans to reduce screen allocation for The Odyssey even as Spider-Man: Brand New Day was simultaneously enjoying a strong run in Chinese theaters.

The film's performance is the clearest evidence yet that the cinema comeback of 2026 is not a blip. The Odyssey has become IMAX's highest-grossing release of all time with $289 million, overtaking Avatar's $271 million from 2009, and its $52 million global IMAX opening weekend broke multiple records simultaneously across 74 markets. Overall the film currently sits as the second-highest-grossing movie of 2026, behind only Spider-Man: Brand New Day, with the China release expected to close the gap further. At the same time, Netflix stock fell to a 12-month low the same week the film was breaking records, and multiple data points across 2026 tell the same story: audiences are showing up for the theatrical experience at levels not seen in years, and the films that give them a reason to come, genuine spectacle, genuine filmmaking ambition, projected the way they were meant to be seen, are being rewarded accordingly. An industry that was declared finished is, this summer, anything but.

Source:https://variety.com/2026/film/news/the-odyssey-20000-screen-china-release-1236833766/