Greek mythology is rife with humans becoming immortal, many of them as punishment for tangling with the gods. But not Christopher Nolan, the Mount Olympus star of the mortal world: Hollywood.

The opening weekend success of his Imax epic “The Odyssey” cements Nolan as his own kind of myth: a bankable auteur who can capture the attention of moviegoers around the world simply by raising his camera.

Nolan has spent most of his career in the upper stratosphere of showbiz; He is believed to be one of the few big-name directors who are events in themselves (Quentin Tarantino, Ryan Coogler, Greta Gerwig, James Cameron). But after a nearly $265 million global first for “The Odyssey,” the best start of Nolan’s career, he has moved even closer to the sun. Analysts predict the film now has a chance of grossing $1 billion worldwide. The title has also crashed into this year’s Oscar race like a bolt from Zeus, disrupting a quiet narrative that Amazon MGM’s “Project Hail Mary” is the reigning populist choice for best picture.

“The Odyssey” has “invited people to return to a theatrical experience that had been hampered since the pandemic,” says Jason E. Squire, professor emeritus at the USC School of Cinematic Arts. “This is an extraordinary creative and commercial victory for Nolan and Universal Pictures.”

In fact, the other winner here is Donna Langley, president of studios and entertainment at NBCUniversal. As the days go by and “The Odyssey” box office records continue to roll in, it becomes abundantly clear how important it was for Langley to court Nolan for Universal Pictures five years ago after his messy breakup with Warner Bros.

In 2021, Langley fended off Sony Pictures, Paramount and the deep-pocketed Apple Studios to win the director’s unexpected blockbuster “Oppenheimer.” While Nolan has never signed any type of exclusive studio deal (and almost certainly never will), the Langley team has proven to be a capable partner for this once-in-a-generation talent. They have essentially replaced Warner Bros., where Nolan made nine of his 13 films, as their default home.

“You might think it’s an easy approval process to move forward with any Nolan film, but it’s a huge financial commitment. A $250 million budget, another $100 million at least for marketing? There’s no guarantee of profitability, and that’s the intriguing and seductive bet for movie executives,” added Squire, who taught Coogler at USC and hosts “The Movie Business Podcast.”

That gamble paid off and obviously came down to a matter of trust. Nolan was outraged in 2021 when Warner Bros., his studio partner of nearly 20 years, went rogue amid the COVID-19 pandemic and decided to release an entire slate of films simultaneously on its HBO Max streaming service and in movie theaters. This directly affected Nolan’s time-travel action film “Tenet,” directed by John David Washington and Robert Pattinson. Nolan’s brand exclusively celebrates movies made for theaters. Jason Kilar, Warner’s corporate overlord at the time, exploited the company’s goodwill with talent and agents in all corners of the business by forcing the studio’s titles to air day and date.

Langley, known for her English grace under pressure and her gentle manner with filmmakers, pounced on a complex and unusual deal for “Oppenheimer.” It guaranteed a long and exclusive exhibition window for the work about the atomic bomb, committing in writing a marketing expense equivalent to the film’s $100 million budget. and awarded Nolan a generous portion of the film’s first-dollar box office gross. Nolan earned $100 million in fees and backend for the best picture Oscar winner. The bond between Langley and Nolan had been forged years before, as they both have children of the same age.

While his “Odyssey” deal is believed to be a more standard deal than the “Oppenheimer” pact, insiders say Nolan will again receive first dollar gross. That means he can get millions for his work on top of his salary at the start of “The Odyssey” theatrical run, rather than having to wait until the movie is profitable. Representatives for Universal Pictures and Nolan declined to comment.

Not that WB, Universal’s neighbor in Burbank, didn’t object. In 2022, following Discovery’s purchase of Warner Bros., the film studio’s incoming leaders, Mike De Luca and Pamela Abdy, clearly announced in a Variety The cover story said they “hoped” to get Nolan back. We later reported that De Luca and Abdy handed the director a seven-figure check in 2022, a back payment for fees he waived in hopes that “Tenet” would be the first film shown in theaters that reopened after the coronavirus shutdown.

That “little kiss,” as one source put it, didn’t work. Especially given the windfall Nolan received after Warner Bros. bet its own blockbuster “Barbie” on the same July 2023 release date that Universal had given “Oppenheimer.” While the competition lit up the box office in an example of world-class counterprogramming, the move was seen as a provocation and antagonism to the director.

And so Universal won the day again with “The Odyssey.” After the success of “Oppenheimer,” Nolan and his partner Emma Thomas did not take “The Odyssey” to other bidders. Langley traveled to Nolan and Thomas’ home in the Hollywood Hills and read the script with the couple, insiders say. The group then went straight into planning Matt Damon’s epic.

Nolan can run the table with any studio partner he wants, but “The Odyssey” feels like his own homecoming to Langley. Shareholders, the creative community and the global public are all satisfied. Why put the film gods to the test?