The Odyssey doesn’t open for another two weeks, and the blame game has already started. Surprise.
The official countdown trailer’s numbers have exploded since we first reported the ratio.
Screenshot via YouTube
Update: The dislikes have shot up to over 350k, with the comments close to 20k.
Lupita Nyong’o is receiving renewed backlash as the controversy is now also affecting the international premiere, set to take place in London on Monday.
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Previously:
The dislikes now sit at roughly 338,000 against 55,000 likes on the Universal Pictures channel, per extensions that restore YouTube’s hidden counts. That’s about 86 percent negative on 4.3 million views, with over 18,000 comments, while the trailer sits at #4 on YouTube’s movies trending chart.
In two days, the dislike count grew sixfold. And right on cue, the industry commentariat has found its explanation: it’s the fans’ fault.
Screenshot via YouTube
The “Rating Bombing” Excuse Arrives Early
Box office tracking outlet Box Office Theory addressed the trailer reaction this week, and the framing is something to behold. It’s actually quite mind-blowing. You can’t help but laugh.
Per their “report,” the trailer released to “mostly positive reactions” and organic social scores, with the “waves of negative sentiment” on trailer pages attributed to “political/influencer-based rating bombing campaigns.”
So a third of a million dislikes on the studio’s own channel are a bot problem? The mostly positive reaction is the real one? And the overwhelming negative one is manufactured? And the 18k+ comments are all made up???
The same report also notes pre-sales remain dominated by IMAX and premium screens, which is a polite way of confirming what we’ve been reporting for weeks: the Nolan cinephile base locked in its seats a year ago, and general audience interest never followed.
The Comments Tell a Different Story
Here’s the problem with the rating bombing theory. Dislike campaigns can inflate a number. They don’t organically upvote comments by the tens of thousands.
The top comment on the trailer, mocking Lupita Nyong’o’s Helen of Troy casting with “Look at me, I’m the Helen now,” has over 10,000 likes.
Right below it, “The face that emptied a thousand seats” sits at 19,000. These aren’t bots talking to each other.
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This is the same casting backlash that has dogged the production for months, now concentrated on the one page Universal can’t curate.
And the backlash predates the trailer entirely.
Tracking showed audience interest plummeting over the casting controversy weeks ago. Universal skipped influencer screenings. A rating bombing campaign didn’t produce weeks of soft tracking data. Audiences did.
The Supergirl Playbook, Recycled
If this feels familiar, it should.
When Supergirl underperformed, the industry line was that women stayed home and fans were to blame, not the movie or the choices behind it.
It’s part of a pattern we’ve documented across franchises: when the audience says no, Hollywood blames the audience.
What’s remarkable here is the timing.
The Supergirl excuses came after the box office verdict. The Odyssey excuses are being drafted before the movie has sold a single opening-weekend ticket.
The narrative insurance is being written in advance, so that if the film underperforms against its $80 million to $100 million tracking and reported $250 million budget, the story is already in place: it wasn’t the casting, it was the fans.
The Verdict Comes July 17
Per the same tracking report, critic social reactions arrive Monday, July 6, with the full review embargo lifting July 15, the same rollout Universal used for Oppenheimer.
The big question is whether or not the critics will shill for Nolan or tell it like it is as they did for Supergirl? Of course, The Odyssey could very well be a good movie…
But great reviews were never the question. The question is whether the general audience that tracking says checked out over the casting shows up anyway.
Dismissing 337,000 dislikes as rating bombing doesn’t answer that question. It just guarantees that if the answer is no, somebody other than the studio will get the blame. Per the norm.
For everything confirmed and still rumored about the film, see our full guide to Nolan’s The Odyssey.
Matt McGloin is the editor-in-chief and publisher of Cosmic Book News, the independent entertainment news site he founded in 2008. He covers movies, comics, TV, video games and pop culture and has reported major industry scoops over the years, including revealing the Avengers: Endgame title ahead of its official announcement. Through Cosmic Book News, he helped Marvel Comics promote Guardians of the Galaxy and Nova through exclusive previews, artwork, and interviews, with the site also quoted in solicitations and on comic covers. He also reported on Marvel’s Daredevil: Born Again retooling before it was later confirmed by the trades.