„Das Publikum sagt der Branche etwas“: Sogar IMAX ist von Christopher Nolans außer Kontrolle geratener „Odyssee“ verblüfft

Adrian Ford didn’t leave the theater after watching *The Odyssey* in IMAX. Instead, the moviegoer and Reddit reviewer behind the account “4DX Reviewer” walked straight into another screening—this time in 4DX—because sound alone made the trip worth repeating. “It was just something that you can’t really get anywhere else,” Ford told *Fortune*.

Ford was far from the only one willing to pay for the experience, in a way that has Hollywood reexamining its prior assumptions. Only around 40 theaters worldwide can project true IMAX 70mm film, and tickets for Christopher Nolan’s epic went on sale a full year before release, with even 3 a.m. showings at New York’s Lincoln Square IMAX selling out completely. 

It was the biggest opening weekend in the company’s history, generating $52 million globally and accounting for 20% of the film’s worldwide opening weekend. IMAX also recorded its biggest opening ever for a Nolan film, and it sold out not only IMAX 70mm screenings worldwide, but also the collectible IMAX camera-shaped popcorn bucket.
“The demand for IMAX 70mm Film has exceeded even our expectations,” an IMAX spokesperson told *Fortune*. “We’ve never seen demand for IMAX Film on this scale.” The frenzy is partly mechanical: The Odyssey is the first narrative feature ever shot entirely on IMAX cameras, using specially engineered sound-dampening “blimp” casings so Nolan could shoot both dialogue and action in the format—a technical first that has driven cinephiles to treat 70mm as the only “true” way to see the film. (Actors were only able to record a few minutes of dialogue at one time before the cameras, $500,000 apiece, reloaded.)

IMAX said audiences have gone to extraordinary lengths to experience *The Odyssey* in its premium format, arguing that when filmmakers create “a truly extraordinary event,” moviegoers will go out of their experience it in IMAX. 

Read more [paywall removed for Redditors]:  [https://fortune.com/2026/07/21/imax-demand-christopher-nolan-the-odyssey-70mm/?utm_source=reddit/](https://fortune.com/2026/07/21/imax-demand-christopher-nolan-the-odyssey-70mm/?utm_source=reddit/)

The sound was absolutely glorious in the IMAX screening I saw.

Hollywood executives will think people are lining up for the film because:

1. It’s Nolan (so they’ll write him whatever blank checks he needs)
2. It’s a spectacle (So they’ll try to make a lot of big spectacle movies)
3. It’s about ancient greece (so they’re gonna greenlight way too many movies in this period, likely from some books like Circe)
4. It’s about Matt Damon (guy already has a lucrative career getting rescued, but hey, what’s a few more!)
5. It’s about boats (Master and Commander anyone?)

Everytime something does very well Hollywood gropes around finding all the things anything vagulely like it to see what sticks.

The one thing they seem to NOT understand is that good art isn’t an assembly line. It’s weird and painful and awkward and has fits and starts. It takes inspiration and perspiration. It tends to fail a whole lot whenever you most want it to succeed. It’s not predictable.

The hardest part is finding something that attracts lots of people. Art at its best is rarely universally loved. Put on some Mile Davis or Kendrick Lamar or Waylon Jennings in a general audience and you’re gonna piss off a lot of people.

But in order to get the budgets needed to do something epic you almost always need it to have general appeal. Hollywood tends to have a lot of writers with contempt for the audience. They think they just need to make the big budget equivalent of jingling keys in front of a baby. These people do not watch movies like the audiences do, so they often miss the mark.

Somehow Nolan has a knack for telling stories on screen that can be artistically satisfying AND generally appealing. I think it’s because he remembers that it’s about the audience experience, and he delights in giving them an experience to remember.

It’s telling them to make bigger Chris Nolan movies or lose to YouTube.

we want original 3,000 year old stories!

Well, the industry will get it wrong, no matter what they do.
Disney’s response to Toy Story 5 is to fire 150 people at Pixar.

Yes, and what we’re saying is we don’t want a reboot, we don’t want another tired sequel, and we don’t want CGI crap. Don’t get me wrong, CGI is a powerful tool to have in your belt. But it doesn’t take the place of a great story, original ideas, and craftsmanship.

There’s a scene near the beginning of the Odyssey where Odysseus is looking over the gunwale of a longboat and just the rhythm and geometry of the spray FEELS real. You can just see that it’s not how an artist would have done it.

In the cyclops‘ cave, the light and shadow on the monster is never slightly off because it was a real thing that was really in the room with the actors, and they got to react to it’s size and scale and movement instead of to some guy in a green suit with a tennis ball on a pole.

Give us a good story with original ideas and CRAFT the film and we will leave our 115″ TVs at home in droves.

But all the right wingers told me this movie was gonna flop

Only echo-chambered Hollywood Execs have failed to understand that audiences are tired of the same superhero and sequel slop that’s been forced down our throats the past decade…

I N T E N T I O N . It’s all about intention.

Is this story being told by a director who wants to tell it? Was the script written with care for the medium, characters, and story?

Does it aspire to communicate something larger about humanity, to push audiences forward in their understanding of themselves, each other, the world?

Were the actors treated respectfully while filming? Are they motivated by a desire to tell the story, to communicate with each other and with theatergoers?

Were the costumes and sets created with intention and care? Were editing, sound, and musical decisions all created with care and consideration to the themes, message, intentions of the project?

Were the artists and producers treated respectfully by the studio during distribution? Did crew leave grateful they had worked on the project? Was everyone compensated as fairly as could be for the project, and on time?

Energy is real and it comes through in art. That is what we all respond to. It’s not a specific story, specific IP, or even the person making it. It’s the intentional artistry that drives each layer. If intentions are confused, twisted, or missing from any part of the process, the results will most likely be muddled or unsuccessful.

This is true about our own lives as well.
Every success is designed by intention.

It’s not a comic, biopic, remake, or sequel. Maybe they should take note.

The sounds designer walking away with the Oscar on this one. Absolutely unreal on IMAX

Ain’t seen it yet. Definitely was planning to even before all of this. But I’ve seen talk and advertisement for this movie more than ANY OTHER for the better part of a year. I don’t think quality is really as big of a factor in the first 3 days of release as people make it out to be. Most people who see something opening weekend, already were going to see it (I’d wager, I’m no authority).

they will just adapt The Iliad

I watched it with my son at a Marcus Theater. I wish I would have taken hearing protectors.

Runaway?! This film has been covered excessively in every outlet for months; it has some of the biggest names in the business associated with it; it has been discussed for at least a year leading up to the release. How is that a runaway success?