“The Odyssey” has crossed $1 billion in global ticket sales at a mind-boggling pace.

After just three weeks of release, Christopher Nolan’s epic, starring Matt Damon as the Greek king Odysseus, has generated $429.65 million domestically and $578.8 million internationally for a grand total of $1.008 billion. It’s the director’s first movie since 2012’s “The Dark Knight Rises” to clear the coveted box office milestone. In a matter of days, “The Odyssey” will become Nolan’s highest-grossing release of all time, eclipsing the long-held records of “The Dark Knight Rises” ($1.08 billion) and 2009’s “The Dark Knight” ($1.008 billion). It’s a remarkable accomplishment — especially for an adult-skewing drama that’s nearly three-hour long and adapted from a nearly 3,000-year-old poem — solidifying Nolan as the most bankable filmmaker of his generation.

Imax has contributed a massive $257 million in ticket sales, and “The Odyssey” will rank as the company’s highest-grossing release of all time by the end of the weekend.

“The Odyssey” joined the billion-dollar club before opening in China, the world’s second-biggest moviegoing market. The country is rolling out the red-carpet treatment for the film, which is expected to land on nearly 800 Imax screens and across thousands of standard auditoriums on Aug. 14.

With glowing word of mouth and outsized interest in premium large formats, “The Odyssey” will remain a big screen draw through the summer and into the fall. Hollywood is banking on “The Odyssey” and “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” to boost domestic ticket sales above $4 billion for only the second time since COVID. The first time the North American box office hit the $4 billion mark was 2023, when Nolan’s prior film, the Oscar-winning smash “Oppenheimer” ($975 million) and Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” galvanized the masses.

“The Odyssey” is the fifth movie of 2026 to earn $1 billion, following “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” ($1.18 billion and counting), “Toy Story 5” ($1.067 billion), “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” ($1.001 billion) and “Michael” ($1.001 billion). At the midway point, this year has already produced the most billion-dollar blockbusters since the pandemic shook up the movie theater industry. A record nine movies cross the milestone in 2019. But since then, no year had more than three films that reached the billion-dollar mark.