There’s nothing stopping Amber Connaghan, a 29-year-old tech editor living in the California desert, from seeing Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey on opening night. Connaghan bought the ticket more than a year ago and was preparing for a three-hour drive to the nearest theater where the film would be shown in Imax 70mm.
“One of my friends got pregnant last year and she said, ‘Okay, it’s time for you to have a second child,'” Connaghan says. “I thought, ‘No, I’ll have to wait a few months. Otherwise it will be too much like The Odyssey.”
Connaghan isn’t the only movie fan going to extreme lengths to watch Odysseus’ perilous return to Ithaca in the biggest, most pristine format yet. Nolan’s decision to shoot Homer’s epic entirely on Imax cameras (the first film to do so) sparked a frenzy for tickets to Imax screenings in general and a near frenzy for select Imax 70mm screenings. Since many Imax theaters don’t have the capacity to show 70mm films, people are crossing state lines, buying up multiple showings months in advance, or even agreeing to a nearly three-hour epic at 2 a.m. just to be part of the moviegoing phenomenon.
“This is the biggest movie of the year from the greatest director of our lifetime,” says Hogan Shay, a 27-year-old software consultant from Dallas who plans to see the film in Imax 70mm twice in two weeks. “We grew up with Nolan’s work. He became a household name for my generation, like Spielberg or Scorsese for my parents.”
Few people can compare to Tim McHugh when it comes to commuting. The 33-year-old healthcare consultant flies from Pittsburgh to Los Angeles to see “The Odyssey” in Imax 70mm at Universal City Walk. McHugh and his brother often take time off to visit various stadiums in America, but there aren’t many Imax screens in their hometown, so they decided to take a cinematic detour on their next trip.
“Seeing something in Imax 70mm has been a dream for me ever since I saw Ryan Coogler film screenings of The Sinners,” says McHugh.
In high school, McHugh worked as a projector at a local movie theater, which gave him the opportunity to appreciate the massive canisters required to carry reels of 70mm Imax film.
“So much of my post-school life was spent lacing up projectors that I fell in love with film,” McHugh says. “When you shoot film like that, you feel connected to the environment.”
Getting to the opening weekend screening can be an ordeal almost worthy of Odysseus. Universal, the distributor of The Odyssey, took the unprecedented step of putting Imax tickets for The Odyssey on sale a year in advance, with most showings selling out within hours. The studio made the second round of tickets available in June, but fans faced hours-long waits and website glitches as they tried to secure a seat.
“It was excruciating,” says Conrad Rothbaum, a 35-year-old filmmaker from Los Angeles. “I was messaging my friends and we were all trying to get tickets at the same time. We keep updating and updating and the site keeps crashing. Finally two of my friends messaged me saying they were done. And when I saw those messages, I thought, ‘Now is the time to log back in because all the sensible people have given up,’ and I got my ticket.”
Others didn’t wait for the technology to come back online. Spencer Frey, a 27-year-old human resources consultant from Hoboken, New Jersey, was working in New York when tickets for “The Odyssey” went on sale in June. Because AMC Theaters’ ticketing website kept crashing, Frey went to the chain’s Lincoln Square location during his lunch break to reserve a seat in person.
“It was pandemonium,” Frey says. “I’ve never seen so many people gathered in the lobby on a weekday trying to use the kiosk.”
The Odyssey is expected to dominate the box office this weekend, with its commercial success a testament to Nolan’s popularity. Over the past two decades, he has become Hollywood’s most consistent hitmaker, directing films such as The Dark Knight, Dunkirk and Oppenheimer. And Nolan has used almost every promotional campaign for his film to promote the cinematic experience and the benefits of huge Imax screens. For many moviegoers, Nolan has become synonymous with blockbusters.
“I’m in awe of the technical aspects of his films—the cinematography, the sound, the scale of everything,” says Daniel Patchen, a 21-year-old media student at Northeastern University who will see “The Odyssey” in Imax at a multiplex in Providence, Rhode Island. “Many of his films are like puzzles. It just makes you want to watch them multiple times.”
Some die-hard Nolan fans won’t be there until Odyssey’s opening weekend. They plan to spend most of July watching Odysseus sack Troy. Simon James, a 33-year-old lawyer from New York, bought 18 tickets to the Imax 70mm screening of “The Odyssey” at AMC Lincoln Square in the first three weeks of the film’s release.
“Chris Nolan is my favorite director and I really appreciate his films,” says Simon. “I really believe him when he says that the best way to see a Chris Nolan film is in an Imax theater. The experience of his films increases exponentially if you watch them in the right conditions.”
Many ticket buyers are also drawn to seeing The Odyssey in Imax 70mm because they see it as the next big cultural event.
“It’s a bit of FOMO,” says Connaghan. “I want to see what someone like Nolan can do with something as epic and exciting as The Odyssey.” When tickets went on sale a year ago, I knew it was going to be something special. I knew this was something I didn’t want to miss.”