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It’s been in cinemas for less than a week but Sir Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey has almost completely sold out IMAX 70mm screenings in the UK until September.
It’s a similar story around the world as fans clamour to see the latest blockbuster release – an ambitious adaptation of Homer’s Greek mythological epic that’s been told for nearly 3,000 years – in its purest form.
But is it one that’s at risk of disappearing, despite the success of The Odyssey shining a light on just how big it could be? With only 41 IMAX 70mm screens across the globe, it was recently revealed by the company how impractical and challenging it is to simply open more to meet demand, converting it from a niche to mainstream format.
‘As Christopher Nolan intended’ is a phrase etched into my brain now, with how exhaustively it has been pushed during the film’s publicity rounds that fans should see it on the biggest screen possible, and preferably an IMAX one equipped with a 15/70mm projector.
In fairness, The Odyssey is a technical triumph as the first film in history to shoot exclusively on IMAX cameras, such is his commitment to this cinematic form.
Indeed, Nolan paid tribute to his IMAX mentor and late friend David Keighley, to whom The Odyssey is dedicated, during the film’s world premiere at the BFI IMAX, the venue where they first met.
‘As a BFI Fellow it’s a huge privilege for us to host any Christopher Nolan premiere, and the fact he chose to sit and watch the film on our screen alongside his cast and crew was an enormous honour,’ the BFI’s IMAX programme manager, Madeleine Mullett, tells Metro.
I was lucky enough to be there that evening and can confirm it’s a truly amazing immersive experience (and a rare place where being on the back row is truly a flex), taking in all of Matt Damon as Odysseus’s awe-inspiring adventures among monsters, immortals, cannibals and his fellow man alike.
It’s the highest quality image format ever devised
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Nolan is also the filmmaker who took a format initially used mainly for documentary shorts to the heart of Hollywood by harnessing it for his epic narrative storytelling.
But this is one of just three IMAX 70mm-equipped cinemas in the UK, alongside the Science Museum’s Ronson Theatre and the Vue Manchester Printworks, capable of showing the film in its purest form.
But what actually is IMAX 70mm, and why all the fuss?
‘It’s the highest quality image format ever devised. Nolan considers it the gold standard of motion picture photography,’ says Matthew Raymond, projection manager at the Science Museum and a trained projectionist of over 20 years’ standing.
It uses actual celluloid film measuring 70mm (the cinema standard is 35mm), which runs horizontally through the projector during the screening. The reel for The Odyssey, unfurled, running at 2 hours and 52 minutes, is 11 miles long.
For Madeleine at the BFI, as Nolan shot the film entirely on IMAX 70mm film using IMAX cameras, it is simply ‘the pinnacle of celluloid presentation’.
The format’s negative is so large that it offers the equivalent of up to 18K resolution on digital, compared to the mere 4K that digital boasts as its maximum. Paired with its signature taller screens (the BFI IMAX’s is the height of five stacked double-decker buses), you can also get up to 40 per cent more film image on screen.
The demand for The Odyssey has been unprecedented
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‘You are seeing the whole 1.43-1 frame from a film print, struck from the original camera negative. You cannot get better,’ adds the BFI’s IMAX technical manager and qualified projectionist, Michael Ford. ‘The other formats are a crop from this format and still excellent, but with 1.43-1 you get so much more of an immersive experience.’
There’s also a bit of magic in the analogue, ‘human process’ of film projection, with light projected on to the screen rather than the ones and zeroes of digital cinema.
Opening weekend was a 24-hour cycle of well-organised cinema chaos for the BFI IMAX of back-to-back screenings, making it the highest-grossing IMAX venue of any type outside America with a three-day gross of £219,867. It broke its own record too with round-the-clock screenings, an initiative it’s done previously with films including Nolan’s previous movie, Oppenheimer.
Of course, there has been plenty of interest in movies in this format before, but The Odyssey is breaking new ground with fans in cinemas.
‘The demand for The Odyssey has been unprecedented, far exceeding even our most optimistic expectations,’ shares Mark Cutmore, the Science Museum Group’s head of commercial experiences.
At the museum’s Ronson Theatre – which added 13 new screenings of The Odyssey between July 27 and August 12 this week, only for them to sell out in around an hour – they even drafted in a fourth IMAX projectionist to help relieve the pressure of keeping up with demand over seven weeks. And these specially trained projectionists take their art, and the duty of presenting director Nolan’s art to the audience, very seriously.
‘When we run film, the projectionist will be sat with the film, at the viewing window, for every single frame to ensure the best possible experience for our visitors,’ confirms Matthew.
As a projectionist, he’s also thrilled to be running more film.
‘Luckily, we have some older titles we run as a film season annually which keeps our eye in and the equipment ticking over, so when a big release comes around, we are confident we can pull it off,’ he adds.
However, it is expensive to go to the cinema nowadays – I shelled out £28 to see it opening day in a Leicester Square IMAX cinema (only semi-as-Nolan-would-have-wanted, I’m afraid), while tickets for these sold-out IMAX 70mm screenings are in the £20-plus range too (or £17.99 if you book online for the neck-cricking front seats in Manchester).
That hovers near £100 total for a family of four film fans. Is the format truly worth it, you may ask? The BFI IMAX reports that its audience members travelled from as far as Singapore, Los Angeles and Toronto for opening weekend, so they clearly think so.
We shouldn’t minimise the difficulty in maintaining it
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The issue still facing the industry, though, is a major technical one because opening new IMAX 70mm-equipped screens to meet this revival, led by Nolan is far from simple.
‘The problem is they haven’t made new IMAX film projectors in about 50 years,’ the company’s CEO Richard Gelfond explained at The Odyssey’s New York premiere last week. ‘So we retrofit them, rebuild them and part of our strategy is to see how far we can take it. But certainly, demand-driven, I’d like to see more.’
However, sources at IMAX later confirmed to Variety that many of the parts needed to build the specialised film projectors ‘simply no longer exist’, while the company doesn’t have a complete manufacturing blueprint anymore either.
Does this mean that IMAX 70mm is a dying art that’s too late to be saved?
The BFI is more optimistic than that, calling the challenges that IMAX has revealed ‘not insurmountable’.
‘Film projectors are robust and well manufactured, so many elements will last many years into the future. But it is a highly specialist, complex and rare film system, so we shouldn’t minimise the difficulty in maintaining it,’ points out Dominic Simmons, head of cinema technology at the BFI.
Its BFI IMAX GT3D projector was installed in 1999, when the BFI IMAX opened, while the IMAX Grand Theatre 70mm projector in the Science Museum’s Ronson Theatre was commissioned in 1996/7 before its first screening to members of the public in 2000.
‘The fact that is has become so appreciated by audiences suggests that it is definitely worth doing all we can to keep it running into the future,’ Dominic adds. ‘Ensuring that the engineering skills required to maintain the equipment are kept alive is crucial and that is what all of us that love IMAX film need to focus on.’
Matthew at the Science Museum agrees, praising his fellow projectionists for doing all they can to keep it alive.
‘What is remarkable about IMAX is the depth of expertise that still exists around it: the real heroes are the veteran techs with vast knowledge and experience who travel the world to assist projection teams in maintaining these beautiful projection systems. Their knowledge is just as important as the equipment itself.’
But it also can’t be ignored just how comfortable people are nowadays watching films on far smaller screens, like laptops and phones; memes were even popping up on social media ribbing the ‘as Nolan intended’ quote by sharing mock-ups of watching The Odyssey on an Apple Watch instead. This is obviously not a recommendation.
Luckily though, for British film fanatics desperate to see The Odyssey in IMAX 70mm, or those who have a new appreciation for the format, more screenings are coming in London.
The Science Museum tells Metro that ‘we will do our best to try and match demand’ while Madeleine at the BFI promises: ‘We are always adding new screenings to the schedule and will certainly be adding more IMAX 70mm screenings of The Odyssey in the coming weeks.’
So for those fans who only wish to embark on a trip to watch Odysseus’s perilous 10-year voyage home from the Trojan War in its truest authentic state, you’re no longer stranded at sea.
The Odyssey is in cinemas now.
