Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey is the first ever feature film to be filmed completely on IMAX 70mm with IMAX cameras.
But, it's trickier than it seems to see the film in IMAX 70mm. According to The Guardian, there are actually only 41 theaters in the entire world that can project IMAX 70mm film.
"We're sold out in some theaters into the fifth week already... There's certainly more demand, the problem is they haven't made new IMAX film projectors in about 50 years," IMAX CEO Richard Gelfond told Variety at The Odyssey New York premiere, when asked about the chance of more IMAX 70mm screens in the US. "So we retrofit them, we rebuild them, and part of our strategy is to see how far we could take it. But certainly, demand-driven, I'd like to see more."
He added: "We build new projectors every day, but film projectors, using this film, it's not practical. So we've got to find them, and we've got to retrofit them and rebuild them, which is what we did for Odyssey. But, can all 2,000 of our theaters be film projectors? No, there's just not that many all around. But I think we can continue to grow it."
If there isn't an IMAX 70mm screen near you, though, have no fear – The Odyssey is available in multiple formats, and Letterboxd has even made a handy punch card to keep track of your rewatches.
The 70mm format even dictated the runtime, since technical limitations eventually come into play. "He [Nolan's IMAX mentor David Keighley] actually dragged me into the booth at some audience film to show me the final limitation of this 3-hour limit on the film prints because over the years I challenged him to enlarge the platters or come up with a clip system to hold the film end when it got a bit bigger than the platter, that kind of thing," Nolan explained. "But there's a particular arm that would require an entire rebuild of the projection system to get beyond that. So I finally said to him, 'Yeah, okay. I'll stay under 3 hours.'"
While the film hasn't even been released yet, controversy has already been stirred up online. Nolan, however, isn't bothered by the backlash.
"Comes with the territory," he commented. "But look," he added, "these conversations that happen before people see the film – they're always irrelevant, because no one having them knows what the film actually is yet."
You can find out everything you need to know about the epic poem that inspired the film in our The Odyssey beginner's guide.
For even more, check out our current ranking of the best Christopher Nolan movies.
