The Odyssey has the most disliked trailer since Snow White
Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey trailer is getting buried in dislikes, reportedly the most for a major film since Disney’s Snow White. That’s a genuinely bad look. But the actual ticket sales tell a very different story. Here’s the real data, and why this movie is still likely to open huge.
Christopher Nolan trailers don’t get disliked. For fifteen years, that’s been one of the most reliable patterns in Hollywood, drop a Nolan trailer, watch the likes pour in, sell the tickets. The Odyssey just broke that streak, hard.
The film’s latest trailer is reportedly the most disliked major Hollywood trailer since Disney’s live-action Snow White, a stunning turn for one of the industry’s most bankable directors. But here’s the twist: it’ll probably still be a hit anyway. Here’s what’s actually going on.
Just how bad are the numbers?
Let’s start with the eye-popping stat, with a big asterisk.
According to third-party tracking tools, the countdown trailer for The Odyssey has racked up somewhere between 255,000 and 500,000 dislikes against only around 40,000 to 63,000 likes on Universal’s YouTube uploads, an estimated dislike ratio of roughly 80 to 90%. For context, Nolan’s trailers are historically beloved: Oppenheimer‘s first trailer sat around 99% positive. So this is, by a wide margin, the most negatively received trailer of his career.
Note that while the negative reaction is clearly real and unusually large, treat the exact numbers as ballpark estimates.
Why are people mad?
Here’s what’s driving the backlash.
The criticism is a mix of legitimate creative complaints and louder online controversy. On the substance, a lot of longtime Nolan fans simply feel the trailer doesn’t capture the gravitas they expect from an adaptation of Homer’s epic. Specific gripes include:
Modern-sounding dialogue. Some viewers were thrown by contemporary, American-accented delivery in a story set in ancient Greece.
A “too modern” look. Complaints about costumes and armor feeling insufficiently epic or authentic.
Casting debates. The star-studded cast, Matt Damon, Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Zendaya, Robert Pattinson, Charlize Theron, Lupita Nyong’o, has been a lightning rod, with heated online arguments over various casting choices.
It’s worth being honest that the reaction isn’t all good-faith criticism, some of it is coordinated pile-on, and some crosses into ugly territory that isn’t really about the movie at all. But underneath the noise, there’s a real thread of fans worried Nolan’s take feels tonally off. That part is genuine.
Here’s why it probably won’t matter
Now for the twist, and it’s a big one.
A disliked trailer feels like a disaster, but here’s the thing: trailer dislikes don’t buy or refuse tickets. Audiences do. And by every actual sales metric, The Odyssey is on fire.
Consider the real numbers:
The film’s first-look trailer pulled a massive 121.4 million views in its first 24 hours, more than double what Oppenheimer‘s first trailer managed.
Advance ticket sales reportedly shattered records at London’s BFI IMAX, with over 750,000 tickets sold in the first 24 hours.
Box-office tracking currently projects an $80-100 million-plus opening, which would actually be ahead of where Oppenheimer opened, and that film went on to gross nearly a billion dollars worldwide.
In other words, the people loudly disliking a trailer and the people buying tickets appear to be very different crowds. The engagement says “controversy.” The wallets say “blockbuster.”
Time will tell.
Should the dislikes be dismissed entirely? Not quite
Here’s the fair counterpoint, because it’s not all clear skies.
To be balanced, a wave of trailer dislikes isn’t always meaningless. The comparison everyone’s making, Disney’s Snow White, is instructive: its trailers got buried in dislikes, and the movie then genuinely collapsed at the box office. Marvel’s Ironheart got ratio’d for months and then landed with a thud. So there are real cases where the “warning flare” of a hated trailer preceded an actual flop.
The difference is the underlying demand. Snow White had cratering interest to match its dislikes. The Odyssey has the opposite: record-breaking presales and Nolan’s uniquely loyal audience. The dislike counter is worth watching, not something to wave away, but it’s one data point pointing one direction while every sales metric points the other.
When a movie is already breaking IMAX presale records, a rough trailer ratio is a bruise, not a fatal wound.
The Odyssey trailer backlash: what it really comes down to
Yes, The Odyssey trailer is getting historically ratio’d for a Nolan film, and no, that’s not nothing, it’s a genuinely surprising black eye for a director who’s never had this problem. Some of the criticism is fair (fans wanting more gravitas), some is coordinated noise, and the exact dislike numbers are unofficial estimates that should be taken with a grain of salt.
Come July 17, don’t be surprised if the movie everyone hated the trailer for opens to a massive number. Just sayin.
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Article compiled and edited by Derek Gibbs (entertainment editor) and the Clownfish TV newsroom.
Hat Tips:
Primetimer and The Express Tribune (July 2026), verified for the trailer-dislike reporting (the estimated 255,000-500,000 dislikes against ~40,000-63,000 likes, the ~80-90% dislike ratio, the “most disliked since Disney’s Snow White” framing, Nolan’s historically positive trailer reception including Oppenheimer’s ~99%, and the crucial caveat that YouTube removed public dislike counts in 2021 so all figures are unofficial browser-extension estimates)
Variety and WaveMetrix (via Primetimer) (June-July 2026), verified for the strong-demand data (the first-look trailer’s 121.4 million views in 24 hours, more than double Oppenheimer’s; the 750,000-plus BFI IMAX London tickets sold in the first 24 hours of presales; and box-office tracking projecting an $80-100 million-plus opening ahead of Oppenheimer’s), and the film’s July 17 release, all-IMAX-camera production, and ensemble cast
Primetimer and general coverage (July 2026), verified for the backlash drivers (complaints about modern American-accented dialogue and costuming, casting debates, and the acknowledgment that reactions include coordinated dislike campaigns), the Snow White and Ironheart precedents of dislike-bombed trailers preceding box-office struggles, and the distinction that those films lacked The Odyssey’s record advance demand