Christopher Nolan continued defying the gods, as The Odyssey pulled in strong numbers on its second weekend of release. With a lack of fresh new titles this weekend, it easily held to the top spot. Among newcomers, Hadestown: The Musical posted pretty great numbers, while Motor City came in unnoticed. The worst of the bunch was Nicolas Winding Refn's Her Private Hell, which flopped to the surprise of no one.

In the foreign front, where The Odyssey continued rolling incredible numbers, Toy Story 5 passed the $1 billion milestone.

The Top 10 earned a combined $137.1 million this weekend. That's down 23.7% from last year, when Fantastic Four: The First Steps topped the box office.

Hanging on to the top spot, The Odyssey added $90 million on its second weekend. That's down just 27.1% from its debut, which is the best ever for a $100+ million opener. Better than Wicked (27.9%) and Top Gun: Maverick (28.9%).

Not only that, it was the second best second weekend for an R-rated title, behind Deadpool & Wolverine ($96.8 million). For Christopher Nolan, it was his best second weekend hold among wide releases (better than Inception's 32.0%), and his highest second weekend (above The Dark Knight's $75.1 million). Hell, the second weekend was higher than Oppenheimer's opening weekend ($82.4 million). It shows that word of mouth is through the roof, and people not only are recommending to others, but are also watching it again.

Through 10 days, The Odyssey has earned an incredible $289.3 million domestically. It's just $40.6 million away from overtaking the lifetime gross of Oppenheimer ($330 million) and become Nolan's third-highest grossing film in the market. It's about to face some heavy competition with the incoming giant Spider-Man: Brand New Day, but The Odyssey still has IMAX authority and should go back to great legs after next weekend. Even with that juggernaut, The Odyssey should get to $500 million domestically, and could actually get to overtake The Dark Knight ($534 million) as Nolan's highest-grossing film.

In second place, Disney's Moana dropped 41%, adding $10.6 million. The remake has made a very disappointing $102.6 million, and it's still set to finish with around $120 million domestically.

Debuting in third place, Bleecker Street's live stage recording of Hadestown: The Musical over-performed projections with a dazzling $10.2 million in 1,949 theaters. That's the studio's biggest ever debut, ahead of Logan Lucky ($7.6 million).

Given the success of the musical, it's a bit unsurprising to see audiences show up, but still managing to get to $10 million with such limited capacity is impressive. And given the film's story, opening on the second weekend of The Odyssey helped it build awareness. This is just expected to be running for five nights, but it's already a success on its own.

In fourth place, Toy Story 5 eased 26%, earning $10.1 million this weekend. The film has now amassed $448.7 million, and it has already passed Toy Story 4 ($434 million) to become the highest-grossing film in the franchise.

Minions & Monsters eased 28%, adding $9.7 million. The film has amassed $155.5 million domestically, and it should get to around $175 million domestically.

Evil Dead Burn dipped 41%, adding $2.8 million. The film has now earned $29.3 million, and it's set to finish with around $34 million domestically.

The Invite eased a light 25%, earning $2.6 million this weekend. The film's domestic total stands at $19.8 million, and it's now a matter of keeping screens in the face of Spider-Man.

Young Washington dropped 47%, for a $1.9 million weekend. The film has earned $44.8 million, and it's set to close with a little less than $50 million domestically.

IFC Films released the action thriller Motor City in 1,600 theaters, but it posted a very weak $1.6 million in 1,059 theaters. Don't expect this to hang around for long.

Rounding out the Top 10 was the year's biggest surprise, Obsession, which spent its eleventh and possibly last weekend in the Top 10. It dropped just 35%, earning $1.5 million this weekend. The phenomenon has amassed a great $261.4 million, and it's nearing the end of its run.

Making its debut in a distant 14th place, Neon released Nicolas Winding Refn's first film in 10 years, Her Private Hell, in 675 theaters. But the film flopped with just $538,839, for an abysmal $798 per-theater average. That's below The Neon Demon, which opened with a weak $589,014 back in 2016. The numbers aren't surprising, given the film's mixed (mostly negative) reception upon its Cannes debut. It will fall off a cliff very quickly.

OVERSEAS

The Odyssey continues showing strength across the world.

On its second weekend, it added $137.6 million overseas, for a spectacular $652 million worldwide run. Which means that after two weekends, the film has already broke even its $250 million investment. The overseas drop was practically non-existent; it was off just 3% from last week, and it didn't have any major market expansions. The week's biggest new debut was Kazakhstan ($1.3M).

The best markets are the UK ($46.3M), France ($31.8M), Italy ($29M), Australia ($20.7M), Germany ($20.5M), Mexico ($19M), Spain ($15.5M), India ($14.4M), Brazil ($11.1M), Netherlands ($7.7M) and Saudi Arabia ($7.2M). In a lot of these markets, it barely even dropped or actually increased. Once again, proving word of mouth is also strong overseas. And it still has big markets like South Korea, China and Japan left (just for reference, Oppenheimer earned $99.6 million in the three markets combined). In China, it is expected to roll into over 800 IMAX screens in August.

In IMAX, the film has earned $78 million domestically and $62 million overseas, for a $140 million worldwide total. 70MM IMAX has grossed $17 million, and IMAX is reporting that most 70MM showtimes are sold out into September. Absolutely wild to think about.

There's now two guarantees and one possibility for The Odyssey. It's guaranteed to pass the $1 billion milestone (becoming the third R-rated film and Nolan's third film to hit that mark), and it's now guaranteed to pass The Dark Knight Rises ($1.085 billion) to become Nolan's highest-grossing film. And depending on how much it holds against Spider-Man: Brand New Day, it could pass Deadpool & Wolverine ($1.338 billion) to become the biggest R-rated film in history. Nothing short of incredible all around the world.

With $24.7 million overseas, Toy Story 5 has crossed the $1 billion worldwide milestone, making it the first animated franchise with three titles hitting that mark. The best markets are Mexico ($75M), the UK ($65M), Japan ($52.6M), China ($41.6M), France ($31.7M), Japan ($31.4M), and Australia ($30.7M). It's $49.9 million away from overtaking Toy Story 4 ($1.073 billion), and it should have no trouble in passing it.

Minions & Monsters added $18.6 million overseas, for a $414 million worldwide total.

Moana continues its weak run, adding $16.4 million overseas, for a very underwhelming $229.5 million worldwide total.

Obsession added $9.5 million overseas, lifting the worldwide total to $458.6 million. More than half of those numbers came from China, where it debuted with a solid $4.9 million. It faces heavy local competition and Spider-Man is set to make its way to China in a few days, but it's still some remarkable numbers.

FILMS THAT ENDED THEIR RUN THIS WEEK

• There's a reason he's called The King of Pop. Lionsgate/Universal's Michael has closed with a fantastic $372 million domestically and $1.016 billion worldwide. It broke so many records, including becoming the highest grossing biopic of all time in both fronts. Unsurprisingly, Michael Jackson has not lost his popularity across generations. It'd be easy for any studio to move forward with a sequel, which will address his run from the 90s onwards. But given the dark content surrounding that time frame (child sexual abuse accusations), that's not going to be an "easy" greenlight.
• 20th Century Studios' The Devil Wears Prada 2 has closed with a great $220 million domestically and $690 million worldwide, more than doubling the original's gross. The sequel managed to translate that popularity in streaming and home media, and some positive reviews also helped it reach almost $700 million worldwide. Yep, sounds groundbreaking.
• Surely some boost could've been good, you know? Neon's I Love Boosters has closed with a weak $9.7 million domestically. It still has international markets left to open, but it's not quite expected to do much. Even though Boots Riley's previous film, Sorry to Bother You, got to $18 million and earned strong raves, that popularity did not lead to curiosity surrounding his new film. Perhaps it'll find a new life in ancilliaries.

THIS WEEKEND

Get ready for the year's biggest debut.

Sony is releasing Spider-Man: Brand New Day, the fourth stand-alone title featuring Tom Holland as the iconic superhero and the 38th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The character is coming off the colossal success of No Way Home, which earned almost $2 billion worldwide back in 2021. Even with the declining interest in the superhero genre, Spider-Man has managed to maintain relevance and interest across so many generations. The trades report that the film has the year's biggest pre-sales by a wide margin, and it's now a matter of seeing how high it will swing.

The Odyssey should see a sizeable drop due to Spidey's high debut, but it will still maintain all IMAX screens this week. The rest of the holdovers, however, will see some bad drops across the board as theaters try to give as many screens as possible to Spidey.

STREAMING DATA

Figures for the week of July 13 to July 19 on Netflix:

The Spanish-language Desire topped the Netflix charts with a pretty good 12.9 million views.

Among English titles, Shipwrecked: Nightmare at Sea added 11.1 million views on its second weekend, taking its total to 20.1 million views.

Voicemails for Isabelle added 5.7 million views, for a 76.1 million views total.

Enola Holmes is fizzling out quickly, as it added just 4.7 million on its third week. With a meager 37.4 million views through 3 weeks, it's trailing its predecessors by a wide margin.

____________________________________________________________________________________________

If you're interested in following the box office, come join us in r/BoxOffice.