This Nolan Superfan Flew From Hawaii Just to See ‘The Odyssey’ Eight Times in One Day

Christopher Nolan has always inspired a certain kind of devotion among moviegoers, but ‘The Odyssey‘ appears to be pushing that devotion into entirely new territory. Ever since the film premiered as the first ever Hollywood feature shot entirely on IMAX cameras, fans across the country have been treating trips to the theater less like a casual outing and more like a pilgrimage.

Tickets for the coveted IMAX 70mm format sold out within minutes when they first went on sale, with some listings on resale sites climbing as high as five hundred dollars each.

That scarcity has only intensified the obsession. Only twenty five theaters in the United States are equipped to show ‘The Odyssey’ in true IMAX 70mm, and several of those locations have already reported selling out weeks of showtimes in advance. Some especially dedicated fans have gone as far as flying to Melbourne, Australia, home to the only IMAX 70mm theater in the entire Southern Hemisphere, just to catch the film in its intended format.

Amid all that fervor, one particular fan has taken the obsession to an entirely different level. Moviegoer Shane Short flew from his home in Honolulu, Hawaii, to Los Angeles with a single goal in mind: watching ‘The Odyssey’ eight consecutive times in IMAX 70mm across three separate theaters within a span of just twenty-four hours.

Given that the film runs two hours and fifty-two minutes, completing eight full viewings in one day leaves almost no room for rest, food, or anything resembling a normal schedule. The endeavor essentially turns Short’s own trip into its own kind of odyssey, bouncing between Los Angeles venues equipped to show the film exactly as Nolan intended, with barely enough time between screenings to make it to the next theater.

Short is far from the only fan pushing the limits of what a Nolan release can inspire. In New York, one attorney reportedly purchased eighteen separate tickets to IMAX 70mm showings of the film at a single theater across its first three weeks in release, describing Nolan as his favorite director and insisting that experiencing his films properly requires seeing them exactly as intended.

Other fans have described booking tickets a full year in advance, structuring entire personal milestones, including pregnancies, around making sure nothing conflicts with opening weekend.

Part of what is driving this level of devotion comes down to the format itself rather than just the film’s cast or story. Fans lining up for late-night and early-morning IMAX 70mm screenings have repeatedly said that the first words out of their mouths when asked why they showed up were about the projection technology, not about Matt Damon or the mythology being adapted. For many of them, ‘The Odyssey’ being the first movie ever filmed entirely on IMAX cameras is the real draw, transforming a trip to the theater into a technical pilgrimage.

That obsession has also created unexpected pressure on theaters themselves. Some IMAX projectionists have had to resurrect equipment and techniques that had fallen out of regular use in order to keep up with demand for the format, with venues scheduling screenings as early as two and three in the morning just to accommodate fans determined to see the film exactly as Nolan shot it. It is a level of technical devotion that has not been seen in theaters in years.

Whether Short successfully makes it through all eight screenings remains part of the story still playing out, but his attempt captures something bigger happening around this release. For a certain segment of moviegoers, ‘The Odyssey’ has stopped being just another blockbuster and has instead become an endurance test worth flying across an ocean for.

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