Can Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey break through in China?

Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey opens in China on Friday, putting one of the summer’s biggest Western releases in front of a market where Hollywood films have had a much harder time breaking through.

The Guardian reports that the film is scheduled for most of China’s roughly 800 IMAX screens. Nolan, Matt Damon and Charlize Theron attended a Beijing premiere at the China National Film Museum last week, and the outlet reported that sneak-preview screenings sold out.

The release lands in a very different box-office climate from the one Hollywood once treated as routine. Domestic titles have made up about 80% of annual ticket sales in recent years, according to the Guardian’s reporting, while the number of Western films approved for release has fallen from pre-pandemic levels.

Nolan is one of the few directors whose work still carries real name recognition with Chinese moviegoers. His 2023 film Oppenheimer took in about 450 million yuan, or $66 million, in China, the Guardian reported. That history does not guarantee another hit, though. Beijing-based critic Liu Nandou told the Global Times he expected a run between 300 million and 800 million yuan.

For theaters, the stakes are practical. The Guardian cited Top Data, a Chinese film-data company, which said 806 cinemas closed in 2024 and another 740 suspended operations in 2025. A large-scale import that can fill premium screens still matters, even in a market built increasingly around local releases.

Source: The Guardian.