As The Odyssey Fans Seek Out One of the 41 Cinemas in the Whole World Capable of Imax 70mm, the Boss of Imax Itself Says Building New Projectors to Meet Demand Isn't 'Practical'

Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey has sent fans acold and wide to find 1 of the 41 cinemas successful the full satellite susceptible of projecting the Imax 70mm format it's filmed in. So wherefore aren’t determination much theaters capable to amusement the movie — the archetypal ever changeable wholly connected 1570 cameras — successful each its glory?

The Guardian reported that fans are adjacent traveling overseas to spot The Odyssey successful the highest-resolution movie format possible, specified is the scarcity of theaters that tin task Imax 70mm. Nolan has agelong championed Imax 1570 film, and helped make exertion that would marque utilizing its dense and large cameras quiescent capable to grounds dialogue. Still, the movie banal had to beryllium changed each 3 minutes owed to the predominant reloading.

The Odyssey is projected to bask a immense opening play astatine the container bureau and overmuch of that comes from a tendency from fans to spot it connected an Imax 70mm screen. The demand, it seems, is there. So wherefore doesn’t Imax simply summation capacity?

70MM Imax lets you spot much of The Odyssey than different formats.

In an interrogation with Variety, Imax CEO Richard Gelfond said he’d similar to spot much Imax 70mm screens, but the exertion is truthful aged that it’s forced to marque the champion of what’s available.

“We’re sold retired successful immoderate theaters into the 5th week already, and the 2am shows, the 7am shows, truthful there’s surely much demand. The occupation is they haven't made caller Imax movie projectors successful astir 50 years. So we retrofit them, we rebuild them, and portion of our strategy is to spot however acold we could instrumentality it. But certainly, demand-driven, I'd similar to spot more."

When questioned wherefore Imax simply can’t physique much 1570 projectors to conscionable demand, Gelfond replied: “We physique caller projectors each day, but movie projectors utilizing 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 tin each 2,000 of our theaters person the movie projectors? No, there’s conscionable not that galore around. But I deliberation we could proceed to turn it.”

It’s a funny punctuation that makes it dependable similar Imax has simply forgotten however to marque 1570 projectors. Yes, 1570 is aged technology, and yes, astir cinemas shifted to integer a decennary ago, but it’s hardly truthful aged that it was the enactment of immoderate mislaid civilization we neglect to genuinely understand.

What I presume Gelfond is trying to accidental present is that the assorted things utilized to marque the projectors are either not made successful the aforesaid mode now, oregon not made astatine all, forcing Imax to retrofit the existent projectors. I fishy this whitethorn person much to bash with a perceived deficiency of instrumentality connected investment. Projecting connected 1570 is much costly than different movie formats, and requires overmuch much attraction during screenings. The tremendous reel of movie for Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, for example, runs much than 17km and weighs 240kg. And let’s beryllium honorable — The Odyssey and Nolan himself are one-offs. Theaters can’t trust connected different films repeating the instrumentality each different weekend.

If you’re confused by each the antithetic formats you tin ticker The Odyssey in, we’ve got a useful explainer close here. The Odyssey hits theaters July 17.

Wesley is Director, News astatine IGN. Find him connected Twitter astatine @wyp100. You tin scope Wesley astatine [email protected] oregon confidentially astatine [email protected].