The Odyssey Crosses $300 Million Worldwide as Jana Nayagan Opens to

Two of the biggest films of the year have been setting the box office alight simultaneously, and their contrasting trajectories say almost as much about the current state of global cinema-going as the numbers themselves. Christopher Nolan's "The Odyssey" has built a slow, sustained climb toward blockbuster territory, crossing $303.9 million worldwide within six days of release. Thalapathy Vijay's farewell film "Jana Nayagan" took the opposite path — an explosive opening weekend followed by a sharp correction — and the two together offer a useful lesson in how differently a premium-format Hollywood epic and a fan-driven regional tentpole actually behave at the ticket window.

The Odyssey: A Steady Climb Toward A Nolan Record

Nolan's Greek mythology epic, led by Matt Damon as Odysseus alongside Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway and Zendaya, opened on July 17 to a thunderous reception in India and worldwide, and it has not slowed down much since. According to trade tracker Sacnilk, the film's India gross crossed the symbolic Rs 100-crore mark by Day 6, with the net collection reaching Rs 84.15 crore across a rapidly expanding show count that had grown past 68,000 shows by Day 8. By that point, the film's total worldwide collections had climbed past $303.9 million, on pace to comfortably beat the opening-week trajectory of "Oppenheimer," Nolan's previous India blockbuster from 2023.

The breakdown of where that money is coming from tells its own story. Sacnilk's week-one analysis put roughly $86.5 million of the domestic US haul on standard screens, with $50 million from premium large-format (PLF) and standard 70mm presentations, $44.5 million from standard IMAX, $9.5 million from IMAX 70mm specifically, and $8.5 million from Dolby Cinema — a distribution that underscores just how central premium-format viewing has been to the film's commercial engine. By Day 9, India's cumulative gross had reached roughly Rs 129 crore with a worldwide tally north of ₹4,300 crore (roughly $500 million-plus at prevailing exchange rates, per Sacnilk's cumulative figures), across more than 73,000 shows nationally — numbers that put the film on track to become one of the defining Hollywood releases of the year in the Indian market.

The Odyssey's India Box Office, Day By Day

Source: Sacnilk day-wise collection tracker.

Jana Nayagan: A Fireworks Opening, Then A Sharp Correction

Where "The Odyssey" has built momentum gradually, Thalapathy Vijay's "Jana Nayagan" did the opposite — front-loading its box office almost entirely into its opening day. The film, billed as Vijay's swansong before his full-time move into politics, opened to an enormous Rs 42.70 crore net in India on Day 1, a number reflecting the sheer scale of pent-up fan anticipation for the actor's farewell theatrical outing. Co-starring Pooja Hegde, Mamitha Baiju and Bobby Deol, the film's opening-day intensity pushed its worldwide Day 1 gross to a striking figure on its own, before the inevitable correction set in.

That correction arrived fast. By Day 2, the film's India net collection had fallen to Rs 21.15 crore — a 50.5 per cent drop from its opening figure, taking the two-day India net total to Rs 63.85 crore and the India gross to Rs 75 crore. Factoring in overseas markets, which added roughly Rs 37.50 crore over the same two days, the film's worldwide gross crossed the Rs 112-crore mark within 48 hours of release — a genuinely enormous number for two days of business, even accounting for the steep day-two decline. By Day 3, the worldwide cumulative gross had climbed further to roughly Rs 171.84 crore, with the India gross at Rs 108.34 crore and the net at Rs 92.35 crore, across more than 37,500 shows nationally.

A 50 per cent single-day drop looks alarming in isolation, but for a fan-driven opener built almost entirely around one actor's farewell, it is closer to the expected shape of the curve than an early warning sign.

Reading The Two Curves Correctly

It would be a mistake to read "Jana Nayagan's" steep second-day fall as a sign of trouble, and an equally serious mistake to read "The Odyssey's" gentler daily declines as proof of a fundamentally stronger film. The two movies are simply built on different commercial engines. "Jana Nayagan" is a star-vehicle event release, concentrated almost entirely around the emotional pull of Vijay's farewell and the loyalty of his existing fanbase — a film whose opening day captures the bulk of its most committed audience in one enormous rush, after which the daily numbers settle into a more ordinary pattern shaped by word of mouth and repeat viewing among the wider Tamil cinema audience.

"The Odyssey," by contrast, is built for a slower, broader rollout — a critically acclaimed, premium-format spectacle drawing on Nolan's track record of strong holds and word-of-mouth growth over its opening weeks, as "Oppenheimer" demonstrated in 2023. Comparing the two films' day-on-day percentage changes directly, without accounting for this structural difference in how each type of release actually earns its money, produces a misleading picture of which film is performing better.

Box Office Snapshot: Two Films, Two Trajectories

What Comes Next For Both Films

For "The Odyssey," the key question is whether its premium-format-driven momentum can sustain itself through a second and third week, following the pattern "Oppenheimer" set in India in 2023 when word of mouth and repeat IMAX viewings kept the film in cinemas for an unusually long run. For "Jana Nayagan," the test is different: whether the emotional pull of Vijay's farewell narrative can generate the kind of repeat viewing and extended shelf life that turns a spectacular opening weekend into a genuinely large overall total, rather than a front-loaded number that tapers quickly once the initial fan rush has been satisfied.

Both films, in their own way, are already box-office successes. What remains to be settled over the coming weeks is which one proves to have the more durable commercial legs — and, for "Jana Nayagan" in particular, whether it can close out Vijay's acting career with a final total that matches the scale of Tamil cinema's send-off for one of its biggest stars.