by FIlmInk Staff
IMAX Melbourne will be the only cinema in the Southern Hemisphere to screen Academy Award winner Christopher Nolan’s THE ODYSSEY on IMAX 70mm Film, the first feature shot entirely with IMAX Film cameras, and the way Nolan intends the film to be seen.
IMAX Melbourne is home to the largest 1.43:1 screen on the planet, the exact ratio the movie was shot in. The entirety of THE ODYSSEY, which stars Matt Damon as Odysseus, alongside Anne Hathaway, Tom Holland, Zendaya, Lupita Nyong’o, Robert Pattinson and Charlize Theron, will fill the theatre’s seven-storey screen, with IMAX Melbourne one of only 41 cinemas worldwide presenting THE ODYSSEY on IMAX 70mm Film, with fans flying from as far as Germany to experience it.
Behind the screen, the presentation is a physical feat in itself. Manually threaded through the projector for each session, the Film reel runs more than 17km when laid flat and sits about two metres in diameter when wound. Only five people in Australia can thread an IMAX 70mm projector, with IMAX Melbourne training its newest recruits as interest for the format in Australia intensifies and the number of films presented on IMAX 70mm Film increases.
Demand has already broken records; IMAX Melbourne sold more than 17,000 tickets and took more than $800,000 in gross Box Office in under 24 hours. At its peak, the theatre was selling over 100 tickets a minute, with hour-long queues crashing its website. The rush mirrored the global onsale date, which brought down major cinema chain websites across the US and UK.
“The appetite for THE ODYSSEY has been extraordinary, and it tells us audiences will travel for the real thing,” says IMAX Melbourne General Manager, Jeremy Fee. “This is the biggest image of the film anywhere on earth, on the largest screen of its kind in the world. There is no better way to see the film as Nolan made it.”
The release follows the expansion of IMAX theatres in Australia as audience admissions to premium, large format experiences grow, with the Australian Box Office hitting $100 million over the last three months. IMAX Melbourne remains one of IMAX Corp’s top eight performing cinemas globally with THE ODYSSEY set to deliver a presentation that cannot be replicated anywhere else in Australia.
“IMAX 70mm Film is the gold standard, and there is nothing like it,” says Fee. “The scale, the resolution and the depth are impossible to replicate. You feel it as much as you watch it.”
THE ODYSSEY opens to the public on Thursday 16 July, with the first IMAX 70mm Film session at 12:01am. Tickets are on sale now at imaxmelbourne.com.au
Image by Eugene Hyland
