‘The Odyssey' Is First Film Shot Entirely With Imax Film Cameras: How CEO Rich Gelfond Met Christopher Nolan's Challenge
Coming away from the $100 million global success of Oppenheimer in Imax (in a total global haul of $975.8M), Christopher Nolan made a challenge to Imax boss Rich Gelfond.
'A year before Chris started filming The Odyssey, he called me and said he wanted to make a whole film shot with Imax cameras,' said Gelfond, speaking during a Imax lunch and press conference Thursday at the Cannes Film Festival.
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'That couldn't be done for a lot of reasons,' he added. Some of the complications to shooting on Imax film included reloading stock, galley sounds and the timely re-watching of dailies.
'There were lots of issues,' said Gelfond when it came to shooting an entire movie in Imax, but Nolan told him, ''I'm going to give you a challenge. If you can figure out how to solve these problems, I'm going to make Odyssey 100% film with film with Imax cameras,' and we've solved his problems. So, this will be the first film ever, at least filmed 100%, with Imax cameras.'
The movie that comes to the closest to being entirely shot in Imax was Nolan's seven-time Oscar winner Oppenheimer.
The Odyssey is Nolan's second movie with Universal since his departure from Warner Bros after making 2020's Tenet. The pic based on Homer's epic follows Odysseus in his perilous journey home after the Trojan War, showcasing his encounters with Polyphemus, the Sirens, Circe, and finishing with his reunion with his wife Penelope. The pic opens July 17, 2026; that mid-July frame has been a good-luck charm for Nolan, where he's launched Dunkirk, The Dark Knight, Dark Knight Rises, Oppenheimer and Inception.
Matt Damon stars as Odysseus. The pic also stars Charlize Theron, Jon Bernthal, Anne Hathaway, Robert Pattinson, Tom Holland, Zendaya, Mia Goth, Elliot Page, Lupita Nyong'o and John Leguizamo.
Most recently, Ryan Coogler's Sinners repped the first release shot with Imax film cameras (not digital) since Oppenheimer, and the last until next year's The Odyssey. Sinners is getting rereleased in 70MM Imax this week, and we hear sales are incredible. The Imax global run is north of $31M on Sinners. Beamed Gelfond today: 'Chris forced us to rethink how we operated our film side of our business in different ways, so we have a program now to train new projectionists, and we're putting more parts around the world, and we're working harder at developing spare parts, and we're looking at ancillary things like film recorders and film scanners. You know, it's not just a camera thing. It kind of was a challenge to look at our business in a different way. And I'm glad he gave us that challenge.'
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