Christopher Nolan opened Universal’s CinemaCon presentation on Wednesday, and the room answered with a massive standing ovation when he stepped onto the Colosseum stage. Universal then showed footage from The Odyssey, and the reaction in the hall suggested the film had done more than its job: it appeared to help ignite the early 2026 movie awards season.
Universal marketing chief Michael Moses called it the kind of year he dreams of, a rare line of confidence in a week that already had studios making their cases one after another. Sony had kicked off its presentation Monday with The Social Reckoning, Warner Bros. followed Tuesday with Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s and Tom Cruise’s dark comedy Digger, and Universal’s Wednesday slate put The Odyssey among the titles now being watched as possible awards players for 2026.
The placement matters because CinemaCon is no longer just a parade of trailers and franchise updates. It has become a first real sorting ground for the next Oscar race, and the source of the reaction around The Odyssey puts Nolan’s film near the front of that conversation before summer has even settled in. Universal did not need to say the quiet part out loud; the response to the footage did that for it.
That same night, at a Nobu party, Steven Spielberg and Moses discussed the presentation, underscoring how quickly the film’s momentum had become part of the industry chatter around the week. Spielberg had already offered his own blunt case for originality at the event, saying he was not knocking sequels — even as he noted, “After all I am on to my eighth Jurassic film” — and adding that it is vital to have original films. He also asked about the influence of John Ford and recalled, “I haven’t done a Western since I was a kid in Arizona making my own little movies.”
The tension around The Odyssey is that it is being judged, at least in part, before audiences have had a chance to see the full film. But that is also the point of CinemaCon: the people filling those rooms are not just looking for what plays well in the moment. They are looking for what can carry a studio into the next awards season, and on Wednesday Universal made clear that it believes Nolan’s film can do exactly that.