Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Odyssey’ Will Make Cinematography History

May 16, 2025

Matt Growcoot

A person in a black suit and white shirt adjusts a large IMAX camera set up directly above another person lying in bed, who is covered with white sheets and has visible medical bandages. The scene is set in a room with a cream-colored wall and a vintage bed frame. — Christopher Nolan and Cillian Murphy with an IMAX camera on the set of *Oppenheimer*. | Melinda Sue Gordon/Universal Pictures

Christopher Nolan’s upcoming film The Odyssey is set to make cinematic history as the first major Hollywood feature to be shot entirely using IMAX film cameras.

Nolan’s love affair with IMAX film cameras is well-documented, employing them in The Dark Knight, Interstellar, and Oppenheimer.

The cameras have traditionally been considered too large, noisy, and unwieldy to use for an entire production. That has changed following a direct challenge from Nolan to IMAX.

“Chris called me up and said, ‘If you can figure out how to solve the problems, I will make [The Odyssey] 100 percent in IMAX.’ And that’s what we’re doing,” IMAX CEO Rich Gelfond said the Cannes Film Festival, per The Hollywood Reporter.

Following the success of Oppenheimer, which grossed more than $190 million on IMAX screens globally, IMAX undertook significant upgrades to its film camera systems. The new cameras are 30 percent quieter and considerably lighter, with improved film processing techniques that enable quicker access to daily footage. According to Gelfond, “He forced us to rethink that side of our business, our film recorders, our film cameras.”

Nolan’s The Odyssey is an adaptation of Homer’s epic poem, chronicling the journey of Odysseus after the Trojan War. The film stars Matt Damon in the lead role, alongside Charlize Theron, Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Robert Pattinson, Zendaya, Lupita Nyong’o, Jon Bernthal, Mia Goth, Elliot Page, and John Leguizamo. It is scheduled for release on July 17, 2026, a date in mid-July that has proved successful for Nolan’s past releases.

IMAX’s partnership with Nolan has also prompted broader changes at the company. Gelfond notes that the camera development spurred new initiatives including training programs for projectionists, infrastructure improvements, and enhanced support for film-based workflows. “It kind of was a challenge to look at our business in a different way. And I’m glad he gave us that challenge,” he adds.

Once Nolan wraps production, the upgraded IMAX film cameras will be made available to other filmmakers. IMAX reports growing interest in large-format filmmaking, with a record number of upcoming projects either shot partially with IMAX cameras or approved for IMAX presentation. These include Ryan Coogler’s Sinners, Joseph Kosinski’s F1, and Greta Gerwig’s Narnia.

It’s not just IMAX either, after the success of The Brutalist filmmakers are bringing back VistaVision film with PetaPixel reporting earlier this week that M. Night Shyamalan upcoming move Remain will be shot on the format that was popularized in the 1950s.