‘The Odyssey’ Fans Are So Desperate for IMAX 70mm Seats They Are Booking 2 AM Showtimes

Christopher Nolan has built his entire reputation around convincing audiences that a movie theater seat is worth fighting for, and ‘The Odyssey’ has taken that philosophy to an entirely new extreme. Universal made the unprecedented decision to put IMAX 70mm tickets for the film on sale a full year before its release, a move that immediately turned ticket buying into its own kind of spectator sport.

That gamble paid off almost instantly. Within an hour of tickets going live at midnight, 95 percent of available seats across the initial wave of IMAX 70mm theaters had already been claimed, according to exhibition sources, with the bulk of those sales happening in the very first hour on the market.

Now, with the film’s actual release finally here, that same demand has reached a level that even longtime Nolan devotees are calling unprecedented. Fans have taken to social media to point out theaters selling out showtimes as early as 2 a.m. and 7 a.m. on opening day, hours that would normally sit empty even for the biggest blockbusters, now packed because they are among the limited number of screens capable of showing the film exactly as Nolan intended.

That kind of demand is only possible because of how few theaters can actually project ‘The Odyssey’ in true IMAX 70mm film. Only around 25 theaters across the United States are equipped for the format, a scarcity that has turned even the most inconvenient showtimes into hot commodities among fans determined to see the film the way its director built it to be seen.

The resale market has ballooned in response. Tickets for IMAX 70mm screenings have reportedly been listed for as much as $300 to $400, with some fans previously reporting prices climbing past $500 during the initial rush a year ago, when sluggish, crashing theater websites left plenty of buyers empty-handed and searching for other options.

For some fans, the format has become less about convenience and more about devotion. One New York attorney told Variety he has bought eighteen tickets to IMAX 70mm screenings of ‘The Odyssey’ at AMC Lincoln Square across the film’s first three weeks of release, describing Nolan as his favorite director and insisting that seeing his films in IMAX is simply the correct way to experience them.

Popular locations like the Universal Cinema AMC at CityWalk in Los Angeles and AMC Lincoln Square 13 in New York have reportedly been sold out for weeks at a time, according to the Associated Press, a scale of demand that even surprised IMAX’s own leadership. IMAX CEO Richard Gelfond told Variety the company is already sold out in some theaters as far out as five weeks from release.

That kind of staying power suggests this is not simply an opening weekend rush that will fade once the initial buzz dies down. With ‘The Odyssey’ expected to dominate the box office and reviews already praising its scale, the appetite for the rare 70mm format looks likely to keep filling odd hour showtimes for weeks to come.

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