There is still one month to go until Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey arrives in cinemas, but already the historical epic is smashing records as audience anticipation grows every day.
An adaptation of Homer’s epic Greek poem, The Odyssey stars Matt Damon as the legendary hero Odysseus. Tom Holland is his son Telemachus and Anne Hathaway plays his wife Penelope, with Zendaya, Robert Pattinson, Charlize Theron and Lupita Nyong’o rounding out the star-studded cast.
For film buffs, any new Nolan flick is a cinematic event of the highest order – a movie worth seeing opening weekend, on the highest quality screen possible. This is especially true of The Odyssey, which is the first feature film to be shot entirely on Imax 70mm film with Imax cameras.
This week, tickets went on sale to watch the film at the BFI Imax, the IMAX cinema in London’s Waterloo and the UK’s largest screen.
It proved to be the BFI Imax’s most lucrative first day of sales ever. A total of 28,000 tickets were sold, amounting to £750,000.
This is more than double the previous record, which was set by Dune: Part Two. The Denis Villeneuve sequel took in £366,000 in its first 24 hours on sale at the BFI.
Nolan’s previous film, 2023’s Oppenheimer, took £254,000 in its first 24 hours. The atomic bomb epic proved to be a huge hit in Imax, where the screenings (which are considered a more premium format) amounted to 20 per cent of overall box office takings.
News that The Odyssey had been filmed solely using Imax cameras – which are widely considered the gold standard for image quality – was announced more than a year ago, at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival.
It came after Oscar winner Sinners and the latest instalment of Tom Cruise’s Mission: Impossible franchise both featured portions shot using Imax or Imax-approved cameras.
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“A year before Chris started filming The Odyssey, he called me and said he wanted to make a whole film shot with Imax cameras. That couldn’t be done for a lot of reasons,” Imax chief Rich Gelfond said.
“Chris called me up and said if you can figure out how to solve the problems, I will make it 100 per cent in Imax. And that’s what we’re doing. He forced us to rethink that side of our business, our film recorders, our film cameras. So, this will be the first film ever, at least filmed 100 per cent, with Imax cameras.”
Homer’s Odyssey follows Odysseus, king of the Greek island of Ithaca, as he embarks on a long and perilous journey home after the end of the Trojan War.
When the latest trailer for Nolan’s adaptation dropped in May, it faced a barrage of criticism over the actors’ out-of-place accents and modern dialogue.
