July 17, 2026

Presented By

Happy Friday. Today, July 17, is World Emoji Day. Wanna know why?

Pull up the calendar emoji and look at the date: It’s July 17. Apple picked that date because that was the day in 2002 when the company debuted iCal for Mac. Emojipedia later decided that July 17 made the most sense for a global celebration of emoji.

Many other platforms have joined in, using July 17 as the date on their calendar emoji. But there are holdouts: Facebook’s still shows May 14 (Mark Zuckerberg’s birthday).

—Sam Klebanov, Matty Merritt, Molly Liebergall, Dave Lozo, Adam Epstein, Holly Van Leuven

In today’s newsletter, we’ll get into:

The Odyssey’s big opening weekend
The grocery shopping crisis
Eli Lilly getting into psychedelics

Markets

Nasdaq

25,881.95

-1.47%

S&P

7,533.77

-0.51%

Dow

52,552.97

-0.20%

10-Year

4.569%

+2.0 bps

Bitcoin

$64,105.42

-1.07%

Intel

$96.98

-5.84%

Data is provided by

*Stock data as of market close, cryptocurrency data as of 5:30pm ET. Here's what these numbers mean.

Markets: Stocks tumbled yesterday, as investors decided that it was one of those days when they remember they’re kinda scared of the AI boom. Chip stocks were particularly clobbered, with Intel continuing a monthlong slide.

Markets Sponsored by The Crew

Want daily analysis of the investing landscape? Brew Markets is our newsletter designed to help you make sense of market moves. Subscribe now.

The Sirens Call

Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is finally here

Universal Pictures

The long-awaited sails are appearing on the horizon, as Christopher Nolan’s $250 million adaptation of the Greek classic ~~you SparkNoted in high school~~ The Odyssey hits theaters in the US today.

Cinephiles and cinema CEOs are holding their breath for the biggest premiere of the summer, featuring an Olympus-of-Hollywood cast headlined by Matt Damon as Odysseus and supported by Anne Hathaway, Zendaya, Elliot Page, Tom Holland, and Robert Pattinson, among others.

While its current Rotten Tomatoes score of 96% already exceeds that of any previous Nolan film, it’s also aiming for an epic opening weekend domestic box office of $100 million, which would eclipse the debut of the director’s previous hit, Oppenheimer.

It’s about how it was made

In the age of AI-assisted production, the auteur director opted to shoot scenes on location across the Mediterranean, with the cast and crew spending days on a reconstructed Viking ship in the open seas. It’s also the first feature film shot entirely on Imax 70mm film, Nolan’s preferred instrument that affords the maximum resolution possible:

People who casually drop the phrase mise-en-scène in conversation will likely insist on seeing the film at one of only 25 movie theaters in the US equipped to handle the format.
But they may have to pay an eBay reseller $1,000 for a seat (on top of $70 for a novelty Trojan Horse popcorn bucket with a hidden compartment in the crotch): Even some 3am Imax showtimes are sold out this weekend.

There are also battles on smaller screens. Some conservative online commentators, including Elon Musk, have accused Nolan of prioritizing diversity over faithfulness to Homer’s text. The director dismissed the pre-premiere criticism as “irrelevant.”

Wide-angle picture: Odysseus’s on-screen return to Ithaca is furthering a movie theater revival this summer, after years of falling ticket sales. Several recent blockbusters, ranging from Toy Story 5 and Michael to breakout horror hits like Backrooms and Obsession, have put the domestic box office on track to reach $10 billion this year for the first time since 2019, per Rentrak.—SK

Reader poll

When are you seeing The Odyssey?

This weekend.
Next weekend.
When it’s streaming.
Never.