The Odyssey Just Helped Christopher Nolan Break a Superhero Movie Record Held By The Russos

This summer has proven to be a massive one for movies, with Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey grossing close to $1 billion and Destin Daniel Cretton’s Spider-Man: Brand New Day grossing more than $1 billion at the box office so far (and still climbing, especially in the case of Brand New Day, which hasn’t even been in theaters for a full week yet). In fact, it’s been impressive to see just how well The Odyssey has performed when compared to blockbusters like Brand New Day—that is, massive and long-awaited superhero movies that are all but guaranteed to bring in swaths of fans.

The Odyssey, while a visually stunning and compelling fantasy movie, is not a superhero movie, obviously; instead, it’s based on an ancient Greek epic poem of the same name. That doesn’t necessarily sound like something that is going to translate into a box office hit, but with Nolan’s expert approach, that’s precisely what The Odyssey became. And, ironically enough, it was with this movie that Nolan actually broke a major superhero movie director record that had previously been held by two of the MCU’s most prominent directors, Anthony and Joe Russo.

Christopher Nolan Is Now the Highest-Grossing Superhero Director of All Time…Because of The Odyssey

With The Odyssey’s incredible performance at the box office, Christopher Nolan has become the highest-grossing superhero movie director of all time, besting the Russo brothers, as his work on the beloved Dark Knight trilogy of Batman movies had already put him in that category. Those movies also performed incredibly well, with both The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises grossing more than $1 billion each worldwide. However, it is The Odyssey that has finally pushed Nolan over that edge, beating the Russos despite their involvement in major MCU movies like Avengers: Endgame and Avengers: Infinity War.

Granted, this is almost certainly going to be short-lived for Nolan, as the Russos have both Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars coming out in 2026 and 2027, respectively. With such massive movies on the horizon, it all but guarantees that Nolan will be bumped from this recently-acquired top spot. After all, MCU fans are always going to flock to Avengers movies, even if they may grumble about it along the way. Doomsday and Secret Wars in particular are also going to garner plenty of attention because they are the first Avengers installments since the conclusion of the Infinity Saga with Endgame and, it isn’t exaggerating to say, are critically important for the future of the franchise overall.

Even so, this is an accomplishment by Nolan that deserves to be acknowledged, and it’s actually all the better that the director broke the record because of The Odyssey. The Dark Knight movies are iconic as well, it’s true, but The Odyssey is a true masterpiece, and it’s nice to know that it’s this movie that gave Nolan this directorial win—even if the Russos are very likely about to grab it back.