The weather was like a myth.
Temperatures are in the 90s in Manhattan, with smoke from Canadian wildfires painting the sky a hazy orange. It smelled like rotting onions on a barbecue. The air looked like drops of acid to the eyes. “Please stay indoors,” the weather app warned.
God has abandoned us, I thought on the opening night of The Odyssey, when I and 650 other castaways were washed ashore on the Upper West Side. There, a 2 a.m. screening of Christopher Nolan’s epic in IMAX 70mm was being held to a full house.
If staying up all night at a movie sounds crazy, the Lincoln Square AMC was a psychiatric ward. It should be noted that this screening was not new, but rather a one-night experience for Nolan geeks and classic film majors. No, AMC has set up 2 a.m., 3 a.m., and 6 a.m. showings through the film’s fourth weekend to meet demand for Imax 70mm. The theater chain shows three-hour movies six times a day in premium large format, available only in 25 theaters in the United States.
In other words, these tickets were hard to come by. (According to Imax, the multiplex “sold nearly every seat for all scheduled (70mm) showings between midnight and 3 a.m.”)
As I mingled with other insomniacs outside the theater around 1 a.m., it became clear that while it was The Odyssey that had brought them here, film projection technology was the real star. When I asked everyone why they gave up sleep on a weeknight to experience the movie adaptations of Homer, the first words out of everyone’s mouth weren’t “Christopher Nolan” or “Matt Damon,” but “Imax 70mm.” More important than the cast or logline was the fact that The Odyssey was the first movie to be shot entirely on Imax film.
“You have to see the movie the way Christopher Nolan intended it,” said Christian, 30, who lives in New York. “Even though this is going to mess up my Friday.”
Christopher Nolan on the set of “The Odyssey”
©Universal/Courtesy of Everett Collection
At 1:20 a.m., a line began to snake around the escalator. People were crowding at the entrance as if waiting for their boarding group to be called, which I didn’t understand. There were no overhead bins required for pick-up. AMC staff manned multiple checkpoints, monitoring capacity like bouncers at a nightclub.
Despite the obvious enthusiasm, no one wanted to come here. If I had to use an adjective to describe everyone who attended this 2 a.m. screening, it would be hopeless. “I had to fight for my life to book these tickets,” a 30-year-old man named Miraj told me. “It was sold out everywhere.”
When Nolan’s last film, Oppenheimer, was released, Mirage had to wait a month to see it on this towering silver screen, so he wasn’t about to make the same mistake again. “I had notifications turned on for Discord, Reddit, and a lot of other places.” He felt lucky to have a seat at this showtime as well. “These guys are ungrateful,” he sneered, gesturing to his friends who were in low spirits.
At 2 a.m., hundreds of people were buzzing outside the auditorium and rushing in to secure food. My spoils are a pepperoni pizza and a cup of the divine elixir known as Diet Coke.
AMC had assembled a graveyard army for this siege. At one point, I counted 12 employees working behind the concession stand. That was more than I had ever seen from a veteran A-Lister. I asked a staff member named Chiara what it was like to work this night shift. “I love you,” she said with a bright smile. “I just love serving customers.” (Did AMC know that journalists would be coming?)
Before the movie started, I noticed a dozen people holding miniature Trojan horses, and naively thought it might have been a giveaway. Turns out they were popcorn buckets (with a hidden spot in the horse’s belly) and cost $70. Chiara said another souvenir popcorn bucket was a replica of an Imax camera and sold out quickly.
Not everyone was in the mood to spend money. My eyes met a man who hurried into the theater with a water cup filled with cherry-flavored ice cream. I imagined Athena shaking her head somewhere.
It was difficult to pinpoint the customer base. Most of the people were between 25 and 35 years old, but there were also a few father-son duos, a number of teenagers from the tri-state area, and one who appeared to be an 11-year-old girl who had been granted a much longer bedtime. As I walked around the theater, I heard Spanish, German, Hindi, and Chinese.
“Odyssey”
©Universal/Courtesy of Everett Collection
I took my seat around 2:15 and finally around 2:30 Nicole Kidman appeared on the screen to remind me why I came to this place. She was greeted with thunderous applause. When the title card featured a four-minute preview of Dune: Part 3, I started thinking about my bedtime.
Thirty minutes into the movie, I started showing signs of weakness. My head felt heavy, so in solidarity with Cyclops, I opened one eye and started squinting. At 3:39 a.m., a middle-aged woman next to me lost consciousness and hit her head on my shoulder. She quickly apologized, and I thought about suggesting that I lift the armrest between us and try to find some kind of symbiotic sleeping situation. It was already too late. She turned and buried her head in her husband’s lap.
By then, when Odysseus and his friends visited Hades, I caught a second wind. Towards the end of the movie, I looked around and saw that everyone was fully awake except for my neighbor. Miraculously, there were only a few seats available. At about 4:30, the audience erupts in applause when Odysseus finally returns home to confront the suitors who are spying on his wife.
As the credits rolled, I stumbled out of the room and brushed the pizza bits off my T-shirt. I remember thinking AMC should sell bacon, eggs, and cheese. “We did ‘The Odyssey!'” exclaimed a woman wearing red flannel pajama pants and a blue blanket/hoodie hybrid.
Outside, the sky began to lighten, but people were in no hurry to leave. They gathered in a circle and binge-watched the movie, discussing their favorite moments. It seems like everyone brought a friend or partner, a witness, to this crazy event. What is the communal movie theater experience that everyone is talking about? Well, this is the hardcore version. They’re a bunch of shallow, sleep-deprived heroes bent on saving the movie.
“I’m going to put this on my Instagram story with a timestamp,” one man exclaimed as he took a photo of his friend still eating from a large popcorn bucket. Another guy taking a selfie video raved: “The movie was great. 10 out of 10. Probably 9 out of 10.” A group of young moviegoers stormed the letterboxes like soldiers at the gates of Troy.
“There’s so much I want to say. I’m speechless,” one man contradicted, enthusing his friends. I couldn’t tell if he was speechless or just tired.
Eventually, like Odysseus, most of them started heading home, catching taxis and heading to the subway. For others, the night has just begun. “It’s already 5 o’clock,” a man says to his friend as he plans to hit the bar.
That’s what I thought while looking back at that time. here.
