Over the weekend, a high-quality pirated version of Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” made its rounds on a popular social media platform. It soon went viral and garnered millions of views within hours. The film, shot entirely with IMAX cameras by Nolan, is still in theaters and has been approaching $700 million worldwide at the box office.
Pirated version ‘The Odyssey’ released online
On July 25, an anonymous account, which has now been suspended, shared a high-quality version of the IMAX film on its account. According to Variety , a message from a suspended X (formerly Twitter) account shared a high-quality link to the film, which quickly went viral. The full movie of 2 hours and 53 minutes was shared on the platform. By the time the platform was able to officially take down the video and account, it had nearly reached 2.1 million views.‘The Odyssey’ joins the long list of films that have been pirated and leaked online on X in the past two years. Ryan Gosling’s “Barbie” was also similarly shared on the platform, along with other movies like “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” as well as “Avatar 3.” Each time the clips, along with the anonymous accounts that posted them online, were pulled and suspended.
Film distributor issues statement on ‘Odyssey’ leaked online
Soon after the film premiered online on X, the film’s distribution company and studio released an official statement. In a statement to Deadline, Universal said: “We became aware of the unauthorized release of the film and immediately initiated takedown protocols. We take copyright infringement seriously and will pursue all appropriate resources to protect our content and intellectual property rights.”
Fans React to ‘The Odyssey’ Leak Online
Although the leak led to many people around the world seeing Nolan’s film on X, it was quickly pulled from the platform. Taking advantage of the momentum and the situation, some fans pranked people online by ‘Rickrolling’ them. It refers to a popular online prank where two videos are merged to trick the viewer. Although some of the trash started with the official scenes of the production company logo from ‘The Odyssey’, the clip went straight to performing singer Rick Astley’s 1987 song ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’.‘
‘The Odyssey’ box office numbers
Despite the number of views online on social media, the film continues to have strong numbers at the box office. Sacnilk reports shared online revealed that the film has already closed with $640 million at the worldwide box office against its global budget of $270 million in its first 10 days. In India, the film’s total box office net collections are Rs 142.86 crore, while the total net collections are Rs 119.65 crore. The film is approaching $700 million, with predictions suggesting it will soon reach $1 billion at the box office.