‘The Odyssey’ Just Crossed an Insane Box Office Number Worldwide, and IMAX 70mm Tickets Are Practically Impossible to Find
Christopher Nolan has spent his entire career turning theatrical releases into full-blown cultural events, but ‘The Odyssey’ has taken that reputation to an entirely new level. Barely a week into its release, the film has already reshaped how audiences and industry insiders alike are talking about the future of premium moviegoing.
That momentum has continued building day after day, with each new milestone somehow topping the one before it. Between record-shattering weekday performances and a genuine frenzy for premium format tickets, ‘The Odyssey’ has quickly become the defining box office story of the summer.
The film has now crossed $300 million at the global box office, powered in part by the highest-grossing Tuesday ever for a Christopher Nolan film. That kind of weekday strength is genuinely rare for any blockbuster, let alone a nearly three-hour, R-rated adaptation of a 3,000-year-old poem.
That box office success has coincided with an equally remarkable frenzy for the film’s premium IMAX 70mm screenings. In Los Angeles and New York, all IMAX 70mm tickets are sold out through August 19, with screenings in London sold out through September 10, seven weeks after the film’s release.
Only about 34 theaters worldwide are equipped to project the film in true 70mm IMAX, making that scarcity collide directly with unprecedented demand. Reports note that opening weekend data showed 70mm screenings made up just 5 percent of all Odyssey tickets sold, yet still generated $6.1 million globally, nearly 12 percent of everything IMAX earned worldwide that weekend.
Theater chains have gone to extraordinary lengths trying to meet that demand. AMC set up 2 a.m., 3 a.m. and 6 a.m. screenings through the film’s fourth weekend, with one New York City IMAX theater reportedly selling essentially every single seat for showtimes scheduled between midnight and 3 a.m. Scalpers have taken notice as well, with standard $35 tickets reportedly reselling for upwards of $1,000 per seat in New York.
That scale of investment traces back to the film’s reported $250 million production budget, one of the largest of Nolan’s career. Shot entirely using custom IMAX cameras, the film marks the first narrative feature ever captured entirely in the format, a technical milestone Nolan had reportedly been building toward since 2008’s ‘The Dark Knight.’
IMAX itself has publicly acknowledged just how unusual this level of demand is. The company noted audiences have gone to extraordinary lengths to experience the film in its premium format, while one industry analyst described the film’s opening weekend as one of the most monumental weekends in moviegoing history, arguing that packed theaters and sold-out premium screenings reflect something bigger than simple ticket sales.
With ‘The Odyssey’ holding IMAX theatrical exclusivity for three weeks before ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ arrives, and IMAX indicating the film will likely return to 70mm screens multiple times before year-end even after handing the format over to ‘Dune: Part Three’ in December, this particular box office run shows every sign of stretching well into the fall.
Would you travel just to see The Odyssey in IMAX 70mm?
What do you think about ‘The Odyssey’ generating this level of demand for IMAX 70mm screenings? Let us know in the comments.
