Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey will set an IMAX record. The filmmaker, who is known for huge hits including Oppenheimer, The Dark Knight, and Inception, is setting his sights on Homer’s classic epic poem for his next project. Matt Damon will star as the Greek hero Odysseus opposite a mᴀssive ensemble cast that includes Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Elliot Page, Robert Pattinson, Zendaya, Jon Bernthal, Lupita Nyong’o, Charlize Theron, Himesh Patel, Benny Safdie, John Leguizamo, Samantha Morton, Shiloh Fernandez, Cosmo Jarvis, and Mia Goth, quite a few of whom are actors Christopher Nolan has worked with before.
Per The Hollywood Reporter, Christopher Nolan challenged IMAX to create lighter and quieter film cameras after the stupendous success of his Best Picture-winning movie Oppenheimer on IMAX screens in 2023. According to IMAX CEO Rich Gelfond, who spoke to the press during the company’s lunch at Canness on Thuesday, the company stepped up to the challenge and Nolan’s upcoming movie The Odyssey will become the first major Hollywood feature-length film to be 100% sH๏τ with IMAX film cameras. Read a comment from Gelfond on the development below:
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. He forced us to rethink that side of our business, our film recorders, our film cameras.
What This Means For The Odyssey
Christopher Nolan Could Set A Major Blockbuster Precedent
While many feature-length movies have been sH๏τ using IMAX-certified digital cameras, including Avatar: The Way of Water, Dune: Part Two, F1, 2025’s Superman, and many Marvel Cinematic Universe movies such as Avengers: Endgame and The Fantastic Four: First Steps, before now, it had been more or less impossible for entire films to be sH๏τ using the film cameras. Because of their size and the amount of noise they made, they made shooting interiors and dialogue scenes particularly challenging, so IMAX film cameras were usually only used for portions of movies, generally the scenes that contained the most epic action.
Previously, the old IMAX film cameras were used to shoot the entirety of shorter productions such as 2003’s 50-minute The Young Black Stallion and the 40-minute 2012 documentary To the Arctic 3D.
However, the new IMAX film cameras being used to shoot Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey weigh less and reportedly make 30% less noise, in addition to boasting new methods of film scanning and processing for dailies. While the cameras are exclusively being used for the production for the time being, they will be available for rental after it wraps, allowing other productions to benefit from the technology. Should the movie prove to be popular, other productions could take advantage of this and potentially ignite a major sea change in the way that future Hollywood blockbusters are sH๏τ.
Our Take On The Odyssey’s IMAX Record
It’s The Perfect Movie For The New Technology
It is perfectly fitting that the new Christopher Nolan movie will be the one to set this IMAX record. For one thing, the director has long been a proponent of both shooting in IMAX and shooting on film. For another, the epic scope of The Odyssey will most likely be well-served by embracing this new large-format approach. The new cameras will hopefully be able to capture every detail of Nolan’s most ambitious movie yet, helping give it the sense of grandeur that the source material deserves.
Source: THR
