Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey has made a powerful debut at the box office.

The Universal film adaptation earned an estimated $124.5 million during its opening weekend, driven by strong audience demand for premium large-format screenings, particularly IMAX showings.

“Death, taxes, and Christopher Nolan,” said Shawn Robbins, director of analytics at Fandango and founder of Box Office Theory. “He’s reinvented the superhero genre, captured the zeitgeist with multiple thought-provoking originals, and turned a three-hour biopic into a global blockbuster. He’s done it again with the retelling of a 2,700-year-old poem that serves as the foundation of what we recognize as modern storytelling.”

Robbins said the director has done it again by adapting a 2,700-year-old poem widely regarded as one of the foundations of modern storytelling.

IMAX reported an estimated $30 million in ticket sales for the weekend, accounting for roughly 24% of the film’s domestic opening.

Overseas, The Odyssey generated $139.6 million, pushing its global opening-weekend total to $264.1 million.

IMAX screenings contributed approximately $22 million, or 15%, of the film’s international debut.

The movie has yet to open in China, Japan and South Korea.

According to Rentrak data, The Odyssey delivered Nolan’s third-biggest domestic opening weekend and his biggest global debut to date.

EntTelligence data showed that approximately 7.5 million domestic tickets were sold for the film. Premium large-format screenings accounted for 45% of those admissions, with tickets averaging $19 each.

Meanwhile, 70mm screenings represented 5 per cent of total domestic ticket sales and carried an average price of nearly $22.50.