Welcome to another instalment of our mini-series on book to screen adaptations.
In our previous instalment, we looked at the impact of the Oscars on Canadian sales and library circulation for books that were adapted into movies during 2026.
In this blog post, we’re going to look at another example with the help of our SalesData & LibraryData services. Today’s special feature — Homer’s The Odyssey.
A quick note about the data
SalesData & LibraryData store ISBNs differently. While SalesData gathers data for each individual ISBN, LibraryData uses ISBN clusters. These ISBN clusters may contain any number of ISBNs related to one title or to a series of books.
In order to compare Canadian book sales and Canadian library circulation, the ISBNs related to each film adaptation were taken first from LibraryData clusters. This same list of ISBNs was then used to gather data from SalesData.
For this instalment, we analysed 27 ISBNs for The Odyssey.
On to what we found!
The Odyssey effect
The most recent film adaptation of The Odyssey, directed by Christopher Nolan, aired in theatres on July 17, 2026. Since then, it’s definitely been a success. The movie has an average rating of 8.4 on IMDB and 94% on Rotten Tomatoes, and has garnered a lot of attention online; the hashtag #TheOdyssey has been used in 304k posts on Instagram.
Given all this growing buzz for The Odyssey, in this post, we looked at Canadian sales and library holds for The Odyssey pre- and post-film release. Read on for a break down of all the important dates for the The Odyssey in the sections below.
The Odyssey over the last nine years
In the graph below, we take a look at how sales for this book performed between January 2017 and August 2026. As shown, while book sales remained mostly consistent between 2017 and 2022, we can see the uptick starting in 2022. Sales steadily increase from there until we see a significant jump of 186% from 2025 to the end of August 2026, where sales reached their highest point over the last nine years.
For Canadian libraries, we looked borrowing data between January 2019 and August 2026. While there wasn’t as significant an increase in loans, we can see the popularity of the title reflected through its holds. Holds start to pick up on a similar timeline as sales: increasing from 2022 before we see a dramatic increase between 2025 and 2026.
You might be wondering, why the increase in sales for The Odyssey in 2022? We might have an answer: In 2021, Jorge Rivera-Herrans, began sharing the creative process of his senior thesis at University of Notre Dame, which happened to be a musical adaption of They Odyssey. This musical, titled EPIC: The musical, went viral on Instagram and Tiktok, gaining significant attention and accumulating a very steadily growing online audience. As of today, Jorge’s TikTok sits at 2.6M followers, his Instagram has 1.1M followers, his Spotify has 3.4M monthly listeners, and his discord group has 276,850 members. As he went on to self-release his EPs over the years, they began hitting the no. 1 spot on iTunes and then no. 1 on the soundtrack charts, and at one point EPIC occupied nine out of the top ten listings. The most recent development for this project, however, has been the announcement that his musical is being adapted into animated movie.
Key dates for EPIC: The Musical
2021: Rivera-Herrans began sharing the creative journey of his senior thesis at University of Notre Dame.
25 December 2022: He announced the release of his first saga: The Troy Saga.
22 April 2026: Announcement of the EPIC movie.
Sales for the The Odyssey following the release of The Troy Saga
With the release of Jorge Rivera-Herrans’ The Troy Saga in December of 2022, we wanted to look at how sales might have differed in 2023 in comparison to 2022. As shown in the graph below, while sales seem more or less similar to those of the previous year up until July, there is significant growth (271%) in August 2023 when compared to August 2022. And sales continue to rise before peaking in November where they increased by 606% compared to the previous year.
Over the course of 2023, as more sagas were released and the fanbase continued growing, animators on YouTube began bringing his musical to life through animatics that gained some considerable attention online. With some notable channels being Gigi (703K subscribers, most popular animatic with 20M views) and WolfyTheWitch (563K subscribers, most popular animatic with 11M views), fan-made content became a huge driver for popularity of the musical.
Sales for the The Odyssey following Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey
But back to Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey. Below is a glimpse into sales of The Odyssey between January 2024 and August 2026.
Key dates for Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey
December 23, 2024: Movie release announced
December 22, 2025: Trailer released
July 17, 2026: Theatrical release
We can see the slight bump in sales start between in December 2024, when the adaptation was announced, and continuing in January 2024, before interest returned to pre-announcement levels.
We see a similar trend of slow growth starting a month prior to the release of the trailer, in November 2025. The growth in sales starts becoming more consistent from March 2026 and then sales peak at the same time as the film’s release in theatres in July 2026, increasing by 263% when compared to the previous month.
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