Nolan's 'The Odyssey' draws IMAX demand and criticism

Christopher Nolan's film "The Odyssey" has driven strong demand for IMAX screenings while also drawing online criticism over the limited availability and cost of the viewing format.

Nolan became the first director to shoot an entire film using the highest-resolution 70mm IMAX film format with a specially designed camera. The movie, based on the ancient Greek hero Odysseus, has led some IMAX cinemas to sell out weeks in advance and add late-night or midnight screenings.

The format is not widely available. Only 41 cinemas worldwide can project the special 70mm IMAX film print used for Nolan's version. More than half of those theatres are in the United States, while India, with a population of about 1.5 billion, has none. Tickets for standard digital IMAX screens are also premium-priced and usually cost about twice as much as a regular cinema ticket.

Because Nolan optimized the film for large IMAX screens, most viewers watching in regular cinemas are seeing an adapted and more tightly cropped version. IMAX said in a statement that its screens show substantially more of the image than standard theatrical presentations.

Some critics and social media users have argued that the approach limits access to Nolan's preferred version of the film. Journalist Harsh Tiwari wrote in The Print, an Indian online news and opinion site, that making a film in a format most people cannot experience as intended is not how a world cinema auteur should work. On X, user @CinemaRythmes said only a few people would get to experience Nolan's true vision. Users on TikTok and Instagram have also posted jokes about watching the movie on small screens or while distracted, mocking what they describe as format snobbery.

IMAX, a Canada-headquartered company, makes high-resolution cameras, large-format screens and advanced sound systems. Nolan, the British-American director of "Oppenheimer", "Interstellar" and "The Dark Knight", has used IMAX cameras for some scenes in his films for nearly 20 years.

For "The Odyssey", IMAX developed a new camera called the Keighley Film Camera. It weighs 200 kilograms, or 440 pounds, and includes sound-proofing intended to make it as quiet as possible. Nolan told a selected group of media earlier this month that the film was difficult and that this was appropriate for "The Odyssey".

IMAX said audience response to the film had been extraordinary and had generated strong interest in IMAX technology across filmmaking. The company added 11 new 70mm theatres worldwide before the release. Each can project the film reel, which is 18 kilometres, or 11 miles, long when unspooled and weighs 270 kilograms.

IMAX theatres took a record $52 million in ticket revenue during the film's first weekend. The move toward premium IMAX screenings is part of a wider cinema industry push to make moviegoing more comfortable and luxurious as theatres compete with home cinema systems and streaming services.

"The Odyssey" has grossed an estimated $320 million worldwide since its July 15 release, above its reported $250 million budget. The two biggest movies of 2026 so far, "The Super Mario Galaxy Movie" and the Michael Jackson biopic "Michael", have each made just over $1 billion.