In one of the worst kept secrets since Woody Allen played Michael’s Pub, Imax 70MM showtime tickets to Christopher Nolan‘s The Oydssey are expected to go on sale Thursday, a whole year before the Universal movie opens.
Sources at Imax, Universal and other circuits are mum about this, as if Matt Damon’s Odysseus character will slay them for making a peep.
This is a first that a studio would put a movie’s tickets on sale a year in advance. Typically advance ticket sales dates are strategic, i.e., there’s generally a two-month lead for a highly anticipated movie like a Star Wars: Force Awakens, and a short lead for movies that are expected to tank, or be semi-controversial, ala Disney’s Snow White (11 days before its March 21 release). The thinking behind this is there’s a rabid appetite out there for the movie from Nolan’s 70MM fans and these showtimes will sell out. Remember, with Nolan’s multi-Oscar winner Oppenheimer, people were going to see that movie at midnight and 6 a.m. showtimes in Imax and 70MM given sellouts at normal primetimes.
Nolan’s Oppenheimer grossed $191 million at the global box office in Imax, repping 20% of its $975M global haul. Meanwhile, 30 Imax 70MM locations grossed $28.8M worldwide.
Nolan is shooting The Odyssey entirely with Imax film cameras (not digital). He’s been a champ of the large format exhibitor since 2008’s The Dark Knight for action scenes, as well as 2010’s Inception, 2014’s Interstellar and 2020’s Tenet.
I hear that Odyssey tickets will be on sale for a limited time.
This is Nolan’s feature take of the classic Homer Greek epic poem about the Ithaca king’s journey home following the Trojan War. Tom Holland plays Odysseus’ son Telemachus. The movie also stars Anne Hathaway, Zendaya, Lupita Nyong’o, Robert Pattinson, Charlize Theron and Jon Bernthal.