Spend over Rs 3,000, but you won’t watch The Odyssey the way Christopher Nolan intended

Matt Damon's The Odyssey is the first-ever film to be shot completely on IMAX cameras.

Christopher Nolan’s action adventure fantasy epic The Odyssey is finally releasing in cinemas worldwide this Friday on July 17. The advance booking for the film, particularly in the IMAX format, started a year before the release date. The ticket prices go up in thousands in Indian IMAX cinemas, owing to the premium Nolan places on watching his films in that large-screen special format. But unfortunately, even diehard cinephiles in the country won’t be able to experience The Odyssey the way the filmmaker intended them to or the way he shot it.

The Odyssey IMAX prices in India

The cost of buying an IMAX ticket, particularly in the opening weekend, doesn’t seem to be too much of an issue. IMAX screens across cities like Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, and New Delhi are filling fast for the opening weekend, as can be seen on BookMyShow. The ticket prices goes up to even Rs 3300 for recliner seats in cinemas like the IMAX screen of PVR ICON: Palladium in Lower Parel, Mumbai.

Only 41 IMAX 1570 cinemas across the world

Nolan made The Odyssey in IMAX 1570, the highest-resolution film format that exists so far. The name comes from 15 perforations on each frame, combined with 70 mm, the width of the film stock. Given that it’s an old technology, and most cinemas across the world have long embraced digital prints, there are only 41 screens present now, capable of projecting the IMAX 1570 format, as per The Guardian, with none even close to India.

Nolan has been championing this specific resolution for years now. So much so that the number of cinemas projecting it increased from 30 to 41 only three years ago in order to screen his last release, blockbuster period thriller epic Oppenheimer, which released in cinemas in July 2023. The handling of the IMAX 1570 projector isn’t only expensive, but also highly cumbersome. Each film reel weighs 240 kg and runs for 17 km!

Christopher Nolan directs Matt Damon and Anne Hathaway in The Odyssey.

The Odyssey made completely with IMAX cameras

The Odyssey is the first-ever film to be made completely using IMAX cameras. 1570 IMAX cameras were used to make the film, despite them being extremely heavy (180 kg!), loud, and in demand of frequent reloading. So much so that Tom Holland, who plays Telemachus in the film, confessed that when Nolan called ‘cut’ within three minutes of his long shot, he feared the filmmaker didn’t approve of his performance — only to realize that an IMAX camera can’t operate beyond three minutes without reloading.

IMAX Melbourne becomes a hot destination

There are only seven out of the 41 IMAX 1570 screens globally that exist outside North America. So, for the southern hemisphere, the only destination becomes the IMAX screen in Melbourne, Australia. Though it removed the film projector in 2015, it brought it back a couple of years later only on Nolan’s request to IMAX cinemas across the globe to screen his then-release, 2017 period war epic Dunkirk, on that format.

Christopher Nolan has shot The Odyssey completely using IMAX cameras.

It’s not a bad option for cinephiles since IMAX Melbourne is also the largest 1:43:1 screen worldwide. It’s spread across 32 metres and is as high as 23 metres, “roughly as tall as a seven-storey building”. So, naturally, when the advance booking opened a year ago, it sold over 17,000 tickets within a day. Having sold over 30,000 tickets so far, it’s already sealed The Odyssey as the eighth highest selling film of all time so far.

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Cinephiles across the world have planned a vacation in Australia around the release of The Odyssey so that they can catch the film at IMAX Melbourne. The countries that they’re travelling from include as far as Turkey, Singapore, Malaysia, Germany, and Los Angeles. Thus, it’s akin to any major global sporting event, like the World Cup, Wimbledon, and the Formula One.

About The Odyssey

The Odyssey is Nolan’s adaptation of Homer’s ancient Greek text. It revolves around King Odysseus’ long and arduous journey back home in order to save his kingdom of Ithaca. While Matt Damon plays the king, Anne Hathaway and Holland play his wife Penelope and son Telemachus respectively.

Also Read: Ahead of The Odyssey, ranking Christopher Nolan’s movies, from Memento to Oppenheimer

The ensemble cast also includes Robert Pattinson as the chief antagonist, Charlize Theron, Zendaya, Himesh Patel, Eliot Page, John Bernthal, Lupita Nyong’o, and Travis Scott among others. Co-produced by Universal Pictures and Nolan and wife Emma Thomas’ Syncopy Inc, the film had its world premiere in London earlier this month, followed by special screenings in Paris and Mumbai.