Update: May 15, 2025
Christopher Nolan's THE ODYSSEY is the First Blockbuster Movie To Be Shot Entirely on Imax Film Cameras
Christopher Nolan‘s
The Odyssey, the
Oppenheimer director’s epic take on the classic Greek myth, will shoot entirely on Imax film cameras, a first for a commercial feature.
Nolan is a fan of the big-screen format, which he’s used on
Dunkirk,
Interstellar, the
Dark Knight movies and
Tenet, as well as extensively on
Oppenheimer. But shooting an entire feature film on the famously big, loud and unwieldy Imax film cameras (unlike the lighter, quieter digital Imax cameras, used in recent films such as
Thunderbolts* and the upcoming
Superman) was unworkable.
Until now.
After the success of
Oppenheimer, which earned more than $190 million on Imax screens, some 20 percent of its total gross, Nolan challenged the company to improve its cameras, to make them lighter and quieter, and to solve issues with scanning and processing the cameras’ 70 mm film stock, to allow him to easily watch dailies as he shot.
“Chris called me up and said, ‘If you can figure out how to solve the problems, I will make [
Odyssey] 100 percent in Imax.’ And that’s what we’re doing,” said Imax CEO Rich Gelfond, speaking at the company’s annual press lunch in Cannes on Thursday. “He forced us to rethink that side of our business, our film recorders, our film cameras.”
The new Imax cameras are reportedly 30 percent quieter — so those infamous muffled dialogue scenes in Nolan films could be a thing of the past — and substantially lighter. Gelfond said new film scanning and processing techniques will allow a faster turnaround for dailies.
The new film cameras are reserved for Nolan for now, but after he wraps
The Odyssey, Imax will begin renting them out to other directors.
There should be plenty of demand. Gelfond talked up the “record number” of films releasing in 2025 that shot at least some scenes with Imax cameras or “filmed for Imax” using Imax-approved cameras, including Ryan Coogler’s
Sinners, Tom Cruise starrer
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, which had its Imax debut in Cannes on Wednesday night, and Joseph Kosinski’s upcoming racing movie
Formula One, starring Brad Pitt.
Narnia, Greta Gerwig’s upcoming fantasy film, will be shot for Imax, though Gelford said it was not yet clear if the
Barbie director would be using Imax cameras for some of the scenes. Netflix has signed a global deal with Imax, giving them a 28-day exclusive theatrical window for
Narnia before the film is released on the streamer.
After 'Oppenheimer,' the big-screen company designed new cameras and production tech to allow Nolan to shoot in Imax, on film, end-to-end in his upcoming epic, and not just for select sequences.
www.hollywoodreporter.com
