IMAX China is preparing to dedicate the bulk of its roughly 800-screen network to Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey,” which opens in mainland China on August 14, with CEO Daniel Manwaring telling Variety that audience expectations for the release “will be huge.”
“We expect the majority, if not the entire network, to play ‘Odyssey’ in the first week,” Manwaring said.
Director Nolan and star Matt Damon are scheduled to arrive in Beijing on July 30th, and Manwaring will hold the first red carpet event for a commercial film at the National Film Museum of China in Beijing. The museum is the government agency that also hosted the Chinese premiere of “Avatar” during the early days of IMAX in China.
Two screenings and another event at Universal Beijing Resort’s Imax theater are planned for Beijing. “I haven’t seen this kind of enthusiasm for a movie in a long time,” Manwaring said, noting that he personally receives “50 to 60 WeChats” every day from people asking for movie tickets.
Preview screenings will begin on August 1st and 2nd in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, with one screening per day ahead of the big release. Manwaring notes that IMAX China is already “firing on all cylinders” thanks to strong advance sales for “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” two weeks ago, but he distinguishes between the audiences for both films, calling “The Odyssey” “more of a first-class urban movie,” and comparing the geographic divide to North America, saying, “The best performance of ‘Odyssey’ will probably be in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.”
IMAX’s initial box office share in Hong Kong and Taiwan is already over 30% in both markets, with total revenue in both markets approaching $500,000, “a significant amount for a small, small island market,” Manwaring said.
According to ticket sales agent Maoyan Pro, the cumulative number of “want to see” registrations for “Odyssey” exceeded 252,000 as of July 24, making it the top among upcoming imported titles tracked by the platform. According to Maoyan Pro data, initial interest is concentrated among users in tier 1 and 2 cities and moderate to frequent moviegoers. For comparison, Maoyan Pro’s “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” has 810,000 views, while “Minions & Monsters” has 234,000 views, “The Devil Wears Prada 2” has 203,000 views, “Toy Story 5” has 189,000 views, and “Back Room” has 115,000 views. Among local titles, “Kung Fu Soccer” topped the list with 649,000 units sold.
Pre-orders for “Odyssey” have not yet begun in mainland China, but Maoyan Pro points out that recent Hollywood imports “Minions & Monsters” and “Toy Story 5” each have sold more than RMB 14 million ($2.1 million) in pre-order sales, while “Project Hail Mary” has sold more than RMB 12 million ($1.8 million). Maoyan Pro also cited “Oppenheimer” as a benchmark for Imax to captivate Chinese audiences with visual effects-driven titles. The film generated a total box office revenue of RMB 452 million ($66.8 million) in mainland China, with the Imax format alone bringing in RMB 137 million ($20.2 million), more than 30% of the total.
Nolan’s huge popularity in China has grown over time, making him “bigger than any other movie star” in the country, Manwaring said. “Nolan is very popular in China, and his fans are not only huge, but very sticky. They are lifelong…devoted fans,” he says. Nolan’s previous film, Oppenheimer, grossed $9 million in its first five days in China and closed with nearly $20 million.
Nolan’s profile “was a little snowball, and it just keeps getting bigger and bigger,” Manwaring says, tracing the trajectory from the re-release of “Memento” to “The Dark Knight,” “The Dark Knight Rises” and “Oppenheimer.” He calls this phenomenon “the Nolan effect, or the snowball effect,” and says it has “become huge,” as Oppenheimer’s performance shows.
When asked what gives him confidence that “The Odyssey” can be a true event movie, he said “the Christopher Nolan effect” is the single biggest reason for IMAX’s optimism. As for the film itself, the executive said, “We’re talking about one of the greatest poems ever made, told through the lens of the greatest filmmaker ever made.”
On the format front, Manwaring said there are still no 70mm Imax facilities in Asia, although the company is in “very serious discussions” to bring the format to the region. Meanwhile, mainland China’s six GT theaters (extremely powerful laser projector setups built in the early “institutional” era, when Imax still installed its systems in science and technology museums rather than commercial movie theaters) have become de facto pilgrimages. Mr Manwaring said the phenomenon started with last year’s blockbuster anime Ne Zha 2, especially when fans flew in from all over the country to watch it at the GT Theater, comparing the effect to planning trips around the BFI’s 70mm theater in London. “It would be foolish to say we are not interested in creating more of these facilities around the world,” he says.
“I would say Chinese audiences are much more technologically inclined than American audiences,” Manwaring added, noting that Chinese moviegoers scrutinize screen specifications and laser projection systems much more closely than audiences in other countries. “They just say, ‘Okay, big screen in Imax, that’s great.'” …I think audiences are paying more attention to that in China than they are in other parts of the world. ”
IMAX China’s first half results showed a decline in both sales and profits. Manwaring attributed this to a weaker-than-expected outlook for the Lunar New Year and a weaker performance in April and May, especially for local language titles. “That’s the nature of our business. Sometimes it happens in cycles,” he says. He noted that “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” and “The Odyssey” will be joined by local hit “Kung Fu Soccer” and Disney’s upcoming “Avengers: Doomsday” for a stronger second half.
Manwaring said Imax’s differentiation from competing premium big brands is increasingly reliant on content, not just specs, citing F1 races, concerts, esports championships and documentaries alongside the company’s “Filmed for Imax” program with local filmmakers, which started with 2020’s “The Eight Hundred.”
“We used to be on the sales side of this business, trying to talk about why it’s so great,” he says of the program’s early days. “Chinese filmmakers all use Imax If you’re going to shoot a movie that you think is worthy of a canvas, I don’t think you’re just thinking about converting it or formatting it in post.”I don’t think Chinese filmmakers will end up going completely Imax-free, as Nolan did with “The Odyssey.” When asked if he would shoot a film with a film camera, Manwaring replied, “There’s nothing more I’d like to do,” pointing to the growing demand for film cameras among Hollywood directors beyond Nolan, but cost and logistics have been a barrier for now.
Imax China has a backlog of just under 200 sites when it comes to expansion, continuing to prioritize high-rise cities over the low-rise, mall-led growth that characterized its pre-pandemic strategy, while upgrading older systems to lasers. “Growth is our top priority and we think our network in China is definitely growing,” Manwaring said. He cites research data from NBA Finals broadcasts and points to alternative content as a tool to expand his company’s target audience. “Eighty percent of the audience at that event hadn’t even been to the theater to see a movie in five years,” he said, adding that when you ask those same attendees if they’ll see the movie again later, “90-odd percent” say yes.
“A lot of people around the world forget how great it is to sit in a really dark movie theater and get immersed in the story,” says Manwaring. “In some cases, you may need to use some alternate content events to bring them back.”
