Nothing would stop Amber Conahan, a 29-year-old technology editor living in the California desert, from seeing Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” on its opening day. Conahan bought her ticket over a year ago and has been preparing for the three-hour drive to the nearest theater showing the movie in Imax 70mm.
“One of my friends got pregnant last year, and she said, ‘Okay, it’s time to have a second child,'” Conahan says. “I thought, ‘No, I have to wait a few months. If I don’t, I’m getting too close to the Odyssey.'”
Conahan is not the only movie fan to go to extremes to see Odysseus’ perilous return to Ithaca in the largest, most primitive format available. Director Nolan’s decision to shoot Homer’s epic entirely in Imax cameras (a first for the film) sparked a frenzy to get tickets for general Imax screenings, and a frenzy for some showings in Imax 70mm. Many Imax auditoriums don’t have the ability to show movies in 70mm, so people may cross state lines, get tickets for multiple showtimes months in advance, or even settle for a 2 a.m. screening of a nearly three-hour blockbuster just to participate in the moviegoing phenomenon.
“This is the biggest movie of the year by the greatest director of our lifetime,” says Hogan Shea, 27, a software advisor based in Dallas. Hogan Shea plans to see the movie in Imax 70mm twice in two weeks. “We grew up with Nolan’s work. He’s a celebrity to my generation what Spielberg and Scorsese were to my parents.”
Few people can match Tim McHugh’s commute. The 33-year-old health care consultant is flying from Pittsburgh to Los Angeles to see “The Odyssey” in Imax 70mm at Universal CityWalk. McHugh and his brother often vacation and visit various ballparks in the United States, but since their home city doesn’t have many IMAX screens, they decided to take a cinematic detour on their next trip.
“Seeing something in Imax 70mm has been a bucket list item for me ever since I saw Ryan Coogler make a video about a screening of ‘Sinners,’” says McHugh.
During high school, McHugh worked as a projector at a local movie theater. That experience taught me the benefits of the huge canisters needed to transport reels of Imax 70mm film.
“I fell in love with movies because I spent most of my after-school life at the projector,” McHugh says. “When I dabble in film like this, I feel connected to the medium.”
Attending an opening weekend screening can be as ordeal as Odysseus. Universal, the distributor of “The Odyssey,” took the unprecedented step of selling IMAX tickets for “The Odyssey” a year in advance, with most screenings selling out within hours. The studio began selling tickets for the second time in June, but fans had to deal with hours-long waits and site crashes trying to secure seats.
“It was devastating,” said Conrad Rothbaum, a 35-year-old filmmaker from Los Angeles. “I was on a text chain with some friends and we were all trying to get tickets at the same time. Even though I was just refreshing and refreshing, the site kept crashing. Finally, two of my friends texted me saying they were done. And when I saw those texts, I thought, ‘It’s time to log back in, because all sane people have given up,’ and I got the tickets.”
Some didn’t wait for technology to come back online. Spencer Frey, a 27-year-old recruiting consultant from Hoboken, New Jersey, was working in New York City when tickets for “The Odyssey” went on sale in June. The AMC Theater ticket site kept crashing, so Frey walked to the chain’s Lincoln Square store during her lunch break and reserved seats in person.
“It was chaos down there,” Frey said. “I have never seen so many people crammed into the lobby on a weekday, all trying to use the kiosks.”
“The Odyssey” is expected to dominate the box office this weekend, and its commercial success is a testament to Nolan’s popularity. Over the past two decades, he has become Hollywood’s most consistent hitmaker, directing films such as The Dark Knight, Dunkirk and Oppenheimer. And Nolan has used nearly the entire promotional campaign for the film touting the cinematic experience and the benefits of Imax’s expansive screens. For many movie fans, Nolan has become synonymous with blockbuster entertainment.
“I’m in awe of the technical aspects of his films: the cinematography, the sound, the size of everything,” says Daniel Patchin, 21, a media studies student at Northeastern University who plans to see “The Odyssey” in IMAX at a multiplex in Providence, Rhode Island. “Many of his films are like puzzles. That’s why you want to watch them again and again.”
Some hardcore Nolan fans won’t just come to see The Odyssey the first weekend. They plan to spend most of July watching Odysseus sack Troy. Simon James, 33, a New York City lawyer, bought 18 tickets to the IMAX 70mm screening of “The Odyssey” at AMC Lincoln Square during the first three weeks of the film’s release.
“Chris Nolan is my favorite director and I really admire his films,” says Simon. “I wholeheartedly believe him when he says that the best way to see a Chris Nolan movie is in an IMAX theater. Seeing it in the right environment dramatically enhances the experience of his movies.”
Many ticket buyers are drawn to seeing “The Odyssey” in Imax 70mm as the next big cultural event.
“There’s a bit of FOMO,” Conahan said. “I want to see what someone like Nolan can do with a big, epic production like ‘The Odyssey.’ I knew from the moment tickets went on sale a year ago that this was going to be something pretty special. I knew it was something I didn’t want to miss.”
