Let's be honest, a movie called The Odyssey with Christopher Nolan as its director was never going to be a 90-minute jaunt with some laughs, a frothy plot and a happy ending. This is the biggest director in the world adapting the biggest story ever written, in IMAX, with gods and monsters (not those kind, James Gunn) and the longest road home ever taken. So when Nolan said that the movie would be shorter than Oppenheimer, that still left quite a bit of wiggle room. Now, we finally know exactly how long this thing is going to be.

Blockbuster anticipation is not just about size. Size is easy. A release date, a logo, a giant cast photo, a CinemaCon sizzle reel, none of that automatically means a movie has real heat in it. The blockbusters people go feral for usually promise something more specific. A return. A collision. A risk. A long-awaited payoff. A director getting too much money and enough trust to do something gloriously overcommitted. That is the difference between big movie and “I need opening night.”