{"id":3997,"date":"2026-07-17T22:11:47","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T22:11:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=3997"},"modified":"2026-07-17T22:11:47","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T22:11:47","slug":"the-odyssey-backlash-failed-tremendously","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=3997","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The Odyssey\u2019 Backlash Failed Tremendously"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

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On the day<\/span> of its release, I woke up at dawn and drove 25 miles to the Philadelphia suburbs to see Christopher Nolan\u2019s The Odyssey<\/em><\/a>, at one of the few remaining cinemas in the northeast equipped to screen large-format, super-high-resolution 70-mm IMAX movies<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I arrived to find clusters of idlers in \u201cNOLAN\u201d<\/a> sweatshirts and Letterboxd<\/a> dad hats shifting their weight, grousing outside the theater. The power had gone out, and the 8 am screening of The Odyssey<\/em> would have to be canceled. Stressed-out employees manually jotted down ticket numbers in order to issue refunds (when the computers were back up and running) and handed out vouchers, apologetically. Filmgoers groaned about not being able to see the film\u2014in its intended format, at the earliest possible time\u2014and about wasting a day\u2019s worth of PTO. A thought crossed my mind: Maybe it was sabotage?<\/em><\/p>\n

Threats against Nolan\u2019s blockbuster adaptation of the ancient Homeric epic have dogged the movie, basically since its announcement. A certain class of terminally online right-wingers\u2014legitimated and amplified by no less than Elon Musk<\/a>, on his own echo-chamber social media platform\u2014have been pulling their oars against the movie, and the prevailing tide of public enthusiasm for it. For a bunch of mostly stupid reasons\u2014the casting of Black and trans actors<\/a>, or of Matt Damon<\/a> as wily Odysseus; the Americanized English dialect<\/a>; the ahistorical ship designs<\/a>; the fact that Tom Holland says \u201cdad\u201d<\/a> in the trailer\u2014many had written The Odyssey<\/em> off, sight unseen, as nothing short of a \u201cpsyop”<\/a> designed to undermine Western culture. One X user lambasted Nolan as an enemy of \u201cthe west.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Even the nearly unanimous good reviews (The<\/em> Odyssey<\/em> currently holds a 96 percent Critic\u2019s Score on Rotten Tomatoes<\/a>) were seen as part of a \u201cwoke conspiracy.\u201d<\/a> These self-appointed Odyssey<\/em> haters conspired to downvote the movie\u2019s trailers<\/a> and generally campaign against seeing the movie.<\/p>\n

But there was no sabotage at the King of Prussia Regal Cinema. The local power grid map shows dozens of similar outages across the region, attributable to recent bouts of extreme weather. And I was told this cinema, specifically, had been suffering from outages in recent weeks.<\/p>\n

Bracketing a few hundred early-morning soldiers of cinema turned away from a multiplex, and a few thousands dollars in lost revenue for the theater, the boycott against The Odyssey<\/em> is shaping up to be a tremendous failure. Early ticket sales\u2014including IMAX screenings sold out across the country\u2014are indicating<\/a> a $200 million worldwide box office return. This would make it the most profitable opening<\/a> for any of Christopher Nolan\u2019s movies that don\u2019t feature the character Batman. Resale markets<\/a> have seen tickets fetching $1,000\u2014for a movie! It wouldn\u2019t be shocking if The Odyssey<\/em> clears a billion dollars, globally, when all is said and done.<\/p>\n

People are booking off work to see the movie. Die-hards are crossing state lines<\/a>, and national borders,<\/a> to see the movie on the biggest screens possible. A story circulated<\/a> earlier this week of a California woman who delayed her pregnancy so as not to spoil the chance of seeing the movie, opening weekend, on IMAX 70-mm. I myself traveled about an hour-and-change round-trip only to not<\/em> see it.<\/p>\n

The disjoint between the anti-Odyssey<\/em> backlash and the film\u2019s actual, organic fandom is revealing. Despite the best efforts by some of the world\u2019s worst people, you just can\u2019t quell the basic human desire to see big-name actors on enormous screens, battling enormous monsters and bedding down with witches. You can downvote a trailer. But you cannot downvote the dreams of the larger moviegoing public.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On the day of its release, I woke up at dawn and drove 25 miles to the Philadelphia suburbs to see Christopher Nolan\u2019s The Odyssey, at one of the few remaining cinemas in the northeast equipped to screen large-format, super-high-resolution 70-mm IMAX movies. I arrived to find clusters of idlers in \u201cNOLAN\u201d sweatshirts and Letterboxd […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3998,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[826,168,499,102,392],"class_list":["post-3997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-gadgets","tag-christopher-nolan","tag-elon-musk","tag-hollywood","tag-literature","tag-movies"],"yoast_head":"\n\u2018The Odyssey\u2019 Backlash Failed Tremendously - Silvybrand Lifestyle Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"For all the hysteria over \u201cwoke\u201d casting and ahistorical choices, Christopher Nolan\u2019s epic is on track to make $200 million globally during its opening weekend.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=3997\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"\u2018The Odyssey\u2019 Backlash Failed Tremendously - 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