That’s just the Warner Bros. courtship. Donna Langley, the NBCU Entertainment chair whose savvy in recruiting filmmakers led to this weekend’s The Odyssey from former Warners stalwart Chris Nolan, flew Parson to L.A. for a meeting earlier this month. Sony Pictures is setting up its own longshot get-together. And A24 is going hard after this one, almost certainly the most aggressively the indie studio has ever pursued a filmmaker. Which makes sense.

Low-cost horror movie "Obsession" from first-time director Curry Barker is on track to become one of the most profitable films of all time, with the cinema sensation piling up global revenues of more than $400 million.

"In terms of the ratio between the worldwide box office and the production budget, 'Obsession' is going to be the biggest success of all time, which is extraordinary," Bruce Nash, founder of industry-tracking website The Numbers, told AFP.

Venues screening The Odyssey this weekend include three IMAX 70mm locations, seven 70mm locations and 21 35mm locations.

It marks Nolan’s second collaboration with Universal Studios after 2023 Oscar winner Oppenheimer, which debuted with £10.9m from 662 locations – the second-biggest launch for the director, behind The Dark Knight Rises at £14.3 m in 2012.

Nolan’s other top openings include Dunkirk  (£10.1m), Inception (£5.9m) and Interstellar (£5.4m).

Russia and CIS box office Thursday, July 16. Russia only numbers for Michael to avoid confusion.

Local family comedy To Grandfather's Village 2 leads with $312k on Thursday and $321k including previews. Its opening weekend is projected at around $1.5 million, 15–20% lower than the first film's holiday opening a year ago.

Evil Dead Burn grossed $228k on Thursday and $241k including previews. An opening of around $1 million would be similar to the 2013 film, albeit with less than half the admissions. It is expected to rank as the 3rd or 4th biggest foreign market after India, the UK, and probably Mexico.

Michael added $160k yesterday, with a 28% week-to-week drop. An $860–880k 8th weekend is expected, bringing its total to $27.55 million by Monday

1972.5 mln RUB or $26.85 mln with 3,640,974 admissions in Russia.

2352.3 mln RUB or $31.98 mln with all CIS countries included. 4,588,341 admissions

No. 17 on the all-time chart and No. 5 among all foreign releases.

1. Avatar 3639.46 mlm RUB
2. Spider-Man: No Way Home 3513.63 mln RUB
3. Lion King 2998.51 mln RUB
4. Avengers: Endgame 2986.85 mln RUB
5. Michael 2352.3 mln RUB
6. Venom 2 2340.6 mln RUB
7. Pirates of the Caribbean 5 2325.73 mln RUB
8. Zootopia 2280.92 mln RUB
9. Now You See Me 3 2198.5 mln RUB
10. Maleficent: Mistress of Evil 2185.25 mln RUB

The Odyssey will be released in CIS countries next week. Unofficially in Russia a couple of days later.

• The Odyssey released in Germany yesterday and after it´s Opening Day it´s tracking to open with Ca. 485K tickets during it´s Opening Weekend.

This would be the 2nd Biggest Opening Weekend of the year, the 26th Biggest Opening Weekend since the Pandemic and Christopher Nolan´s 5th Biggest Opening Weekend, just -3.8% below Oppenheimer.

It would be a lot lower than Troy (2004). However, going to movie theaters was just a lot more popular in Germany back then and films. especially Blockbusters, were a lot more frontloaded back then.

Top 10 Biggest 2026 Opening Weekends:

Top 10 Biggest Christopher Nolan Opening Weekends:

• Minions & Monsters continues to underperfrom compared to previous entries (DM 3rd WE: 348,169 tickets +15%/ Ca. 1,410,000 tickets, DM2 3rd WE: 258.256 tickets -42%/ 1,625,034 tickets, Minions 3rd WE: 760,181 tickets -27%/ 3,597,752 tickets, DM3 3rd WE: 462,009 tickets -32%/ 2,592,248 tickets, Minions 2 3rd WE: 361,720 tickets -37%/ 1,759,023 tickets, DM4 3rd WE: 401,885 tickets +11%/ 2,124,753 tickets).

Meanwhile, Moana 2026 is performing worse than Moana 2 (2nd WE: 712,365 tickets -26%/ 1,830,606 tickets) and Moana 2016 (2nd WE: 279,649 tickets +75%/ 797,957 tickets).

As acnother comparison, Snow White 2025 had a 2nd Weekend of 142,152 tickets -22%/ 359,313 tickets and Lilo & Stitch 2025 had a 2nd Weekend of 652,680 tickets -11%/ 1,577,860 tickets.

The current projection for the weekend:

1. The Odyssey - 485.000 tickets (New)
2. Minions & Monsters - 160.000 tickets -13.3%/ 1.125.000 tickets (3rd Weekend)
3. Moana - 130.000 tickets -50.7%/ 495.000 tickets (2nd Weekend)
4. Obsession - 105.000 tickets -16.1%/ 850.000 tickets (4th Weekend)

• Of course, this is only a projection based on the Thursday (& Wednesday) numbers of these films, so these numbers can still change in the coming days.

My next post about next weekend´s final numbers will be released next week, probably on wednesday, maybe tuesday or thursday.

Source: MaoYan Pro App

Note: Grosses city-wide was much depressed by FIFA. Case in point: the new Doraemon installment (63K) is down nearly by half.

>The cast includes Korean actors Hwang Jung-min, Zo In-sung and Jung Ho-yeon, along with Hollywood actors Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander and Taylor Russell portraying the alien beings.

>Oscar-winning director Bong Joon-ho praised the film during a post-screening audience discussion held at Megabox Coex in southern Seoul on Wednesday.

>"'What on earth did I just watch?' was my first thought,” Bong said. “Once the thrill and cinematic shock settle, I have so many questions. It's an astonishing cinematic adventure.”

>Bong also thanked Na for his creative production.

>“Where else are we ever going to see a film like this?” Bong said. “It's a movie bursting with audacity and madness. As a fellow filmmaker, I'm sincerely grateful that you've given us such a spectacular vision of what cinema can be.”

Jurassic World: Rebirth seems low but compared to the other titles, it did way bigger numbers in its first 2 days on Netflix. That's only showing day 3 to day 9 and "Song Sung Blue" missed the Nielsen Top 10 for its first 2 days on Netflix.