Christopher Nolan’s upcoming IMAX epic, The Odyssey, arrives in theaters in just a few short weeks. It is a massive moment in cinema history, thanks in large part to the way it was filmed — entirely in IMAX.
To say cinephiles are excited for the film would be an understatement. Tickets for IMAX 70mm screenings sold out instantly and are being scalped on eBay for upwards of $1,500. A special edition popcorn bucket shaped like an IMAX camera sold out very fast, too.
Oscar-winning filmmaker Christopher Nolan used over two million feet of film for The Odyssey. A foot of 65mm Kodak film for IMAX cameras cost about $1.50 at the time of filming, so some quick math puts just film costs for the movie at roughly $3 million. The entire budget is reported to be $250 million. The movie is, again, a huge deal.
IMAX and Universal Pictures just published a new “Completely in IMAX Featurette” for the film this week, seen above, and it offers some interesting insights into the IMAX filming process and what The Odyssey means for Hollywood.
“The Odyssey is definitely the biggest movie that I’ve ever done in my career,” says award-winning actor and star of the film, Matt Damon. “It was like making a movie the way you would have made it a hundred years ago. Except for the fact that it’s on IMAX.”
“IMAX is a camera that doesn’t lie,” says celebrated cinematographer and Director of Photography, Hoyte Van Hoytema. “This is definitely the format, or the window, that this story wants to be seen in and that has always been our first choice.”
As Zendaya explains, if there is anyone who will do something like this, something that has never been done before in the movie industry, it’s Christopher Nolan and Hoyte Van Hoytema.
“For me, it’s been my long-held dream I’ve been nursing since I was about 16 years old to do an entire film on IMAX,” Nolan says. “The thing that was stopping us was always the sound.”
“Gosh, it’s loud,” Anne Hathaway says.
“Then they brought the blimp out,” adds Tom Holland.
The blimp, as it’s called, is a custom housing built specifically to address the noise issue of IMAX cameras and enable an entire movie to be shot on IMAX.
“The blimp system is a game-changer,” Nolan told Variety last year. “You can be shooting a foot from [an actor’s] face while they’re whispering and get usable sound. What that opens up are intimate moments of performance on the world’s most beautiful format.”
“It feels like you’re shooting a scene with like an SUV,” laughs star actor Robert Pattinson. “But even with the size of the camera, you just feel like the machine would move slower, and it just moves faster than if you are shooting on an iPhone.”
As Hoyte Van Hoytema says, everything he and Nolan do, including dealing with massive, heavy cameras, is done in service of filmgoers.
“You’re really going to be immeshed in this world,” Holland says.
“I cannot wait to sit in an IMAX theater and completely be lost in this world that he’s created,” Zendaya adds.
“This is pure cinema,” says actor Himesh Patel.
Image credits: Universal Pictures
