(Image Credits: Universal Pictures)
The MPA rating for Christopher Nolan‘s The Odyssey has been revealed. Despite the large scale of the movie, its surprising rating as risky as some might think it is.
With premium format showings of The Odyssey officially going on sale this week, theaters began showcasing full profiles for the film. This means we also learned the film was rated R. The rating isn’t too shocking given the nature of the historical epic, but many had assumed the movie would hold a PG-13 rating for a number of reasons. Despite the high budget of The Odyssey, its rating shouldn’t be too much of an issue.
The Odyssey rating shouldn’t hurt it too much at the box office
People wary of the movie’s R-rating will make it even harder for The Odyssey to make its money back. The movies budget is reportedly upwards of $250 million. However, fans don’t have to look very far into Nolan’s resume of films to see him earn massive returns with an R-rated film.
Nolan’s last movie, Oppenheimer, was also an R-rated movie. While likely much less action-packed than The Odyssey, Oppenheimer still earned its rating with a number of violent and sexual moments. Despite that, the movie was a smash hit and earned over $1 billion at the box office. This shows that, although a high rating could be considered risky, Nolan’s name recognition alone can help raise the film’s potential returns.
On top of Nolan’s own name recognition, the subject matter of the movie will help as well. The Odyssey is one of the most famous stories ever told, and the movie capitalizes on the popularity of Greek mythology today. The combination of these things means that, regardless of the film’s rating, it’s likely to perform well at the box office, although maybe not as well as if it were a PG-13 movie and could be seen by more people.
Nolan has also proven to be adept at telling stories in a number of different ways. Whether a film is PG-13 or R-rated, people will want to tune in for whatever the next Nolan movie is. Ultimately, it was a fine idea to let Nolan tell the story the way he wanted to, and if that means it has to have a higher rating, then so be it.
Originally reported by Anthony Nash for ComingSoon.
