The Odyssey is opening in theaters this weekend, and many fans want to see the film in IMAX 70mm format.
It is apparently the most ideal way to watch Christopher Nolan’s star-studded new film…but there’s a problem. Only a handful of movie theaters in the USA have the capability of showing the film in the 70mm formatting. Some of the theaters that have this option include Los Angeles’ TCL Chinese Theatre, AMC Universal Cinema, NYC’s AMC Lincoln Square 13, San Francisco’s AMC Metreon 16, Dallas’ Cinemark Dallas, Nashville’s Regal Opry Mills, and Indianapolis’ IMAX Theatre at the Indiana State Museum.
Why are there so few theaters showing The Odyssey in IMAX 70mm format?
IMAX CEO Richard Gelfond actually explained.
“We’re sold out in some theaters into the fifth week already, and the 2am shows, the 7am shows, so there’s certainly more demand. The problem is they haven’t made new Imax film projectors in about 50 years. So we retrofit them, we rebuild them, and part of our strategy is to see how far we could take it. But certainly, demand-driven, I’d like to see more,” he told Variety.
However, IMAX has 1570 projectors. So why can’t they be made to meet the demand? He shared, “We build new projectors every day, but film projectors using this film, it’s not practical. So we’ve got to find them, and we’ve got to retrofit them and rebuild them, which is what we did for The Odyssey. But can all 2,000 of our theaters have the film projectors? No, there’s just not that many around. But I think we could continue to grow it.”
Posted To:The Odyssey