Christopher Nolan fans are traveling across the United States and making large in-person commitments to see The Odyssey in IMAX 70mm, as demand for premium screenings of the film continues to grow ahead of its July 17 release.
Fans travel across the country and make big sacrifices for IMAX 70mm
Christopher Nolan fans are traveling across the United States and making significant in-person commitments to experience ‘The Odyssey’ in IMAX 70mm, as demand for premium screenings of the film continues to grow ahead of its release.
Odyssey is the first feature film to be shot entirely with IMAX cameras, which has led to strong demand for the limited number of theaters that can show the 70 mm format.
Amber Conaghan, a 29-year-old tech editor who lives in the California desert, told Diversity She postponed plans to have a second child so she could attend the opening day screening. “A friend of mine got pregnant last year, and she said, ‘Okay, now it’s time to have your second child,'”
Conaghan said. “I said, ‘No, I have to wait a few months. Otherwise, it will be too close to ‘The Odyssey.’
According to the Tribune, Pittsburgh resident Tim McHugh is flying to Los Angeles to see the film at Universal CityWalk. McHugh told Variety that seeing it in IMAX 70mm has been a bucket list item for him “ever since I saw Ryan Coogler make a video about a screening of ‘Sinners’.”
He said that working on a projector at a local cinema in high school gave him an appreciation for the film format: “Most of my life after school was spent working on projectors, which is how I fell in love with films. When you’re getting your hands on a film like this, you feel a connection to the medium.”
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Tickets sold out within hours, sites crashed during rush hour
According to Variety, Universal, the distributor of The Odyssey, took the unprecedented step of beginning sales of IMAX tickets a year in advance, and most screenings sold out within hours. Tickets for many screenings sold out after Universal released them a year earlier, with additional ticket releases also causing long online queues and website crashes.
Conrad Rothbaum, a 35-year-old filmmaker in Los Angeles, told Variety, “It was annoying. I was on a text chain with friends, and we were all trying to get tickets at the same time. We were just refreshing and refreshing and the site kept crashing. Finally, two of my friends texted me that they were done. And when I saw those texts, I thought, ‘It’s time to log back in because all reasonable people have given up. Agreed,’ and I got my ticket.”
Spencer Frey, a 27-year-old recruitment consultant from Hoboken, New Jersey, went to an AMC Theaters location in New York City to book a seat in person during his lunch break after the website kept crashing. “There was an atmosphere of chaos,” Frey told Variety. “I’ve never seen so many people packed into the lobby on a weekday, all trying to use a kiosk.”
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about odyssey
After the Trojan War, Odysseus begins a dangerous journey towards Ithaca. Along the way, he encounters mythological creatures such as the Cyclops Polyphemus, the Sirens, and Calypso.
The film follows the Greek king of Ithaca Odysseus, played by Matt Damon, as he tries to return home to his wife and son, played by Anne Hathaway and Tom Holland. Meanwhile, the villain Antinous wants to take the queen while Odysseus is away.
The Odyssey is directed by Christopher Nolan and marks his first film since 2023’s Oppenheimer, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture.