Christopher Nolan’s highly anticipated film, “The Odyssey,” is unexpectedly driving thousands of Europeans to Prague. The Czech capital has become a unique destination for film fans, boasting one of only a few dozen cinemas globally, and just three in Europe, equipped with the coveted 70mm IMAX screen. This allows viewers to experience the first feature made entirely with IMAX cameras as intended.
Nicolas Walak from Poland, who saw the movie on a normal screen before his Prague visit, affirmed the impact: “It completely changed my experience about the movie. Everything was great. It was a great movie.”
Czech cinema adapts to meet demand for rare IMAX format
Film enthusiasts across Europe are making a pilgrimage to Prague to experience ‘The Odyssey’ in its intended IMAX 70mm format, highlighting the global scarcity of such screens. Only 41 exist worldwide, mostly in North America, with European Union boasting just two others (Montpellier, France, and Brussels, Belgium) and the UK hosting three.
Prague’s Cinema City is meeting overwhelming demand with four to five daily screenings, including one after midnight, most of which are sold out. By Monday, 22,000 film fans from around 15 European countries, from Scandinavia to Spain, had travelled to the city.
IMAX 70mm presentation is the preferred format of Oscar-winning filmmaker Christopher Nolan, who calls it the ‘best possible experience’.
Moviegoers travel up to three days to Prague
Daniel Jung drove with his two teenage sons, Felix and Leo, for three days from Norway through Denmark and Germany “just to see this movie. Tomorrow, we’re going back.”
Leo was in touch with Cinema City by email half a year before the July 16 premiere and followed the cinema operator on Instagram. He managed to book the tickets immediately after they became available.
“We were in the 11th row, right in the middle. We had the very best seats,” Leo said, calling the effort “absolutely worth it.”
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“It’s just so big. We come from Norway, the screens we have are much smaller,” he said. “Now, we watched it in this huge format. I will always remember this experience.”
Felix said they had a good time on the way, visiting some places in Germany, but it would be worth it even if they just drove straight there.
Few IMAX left because of costs and other challenges
Due to the cost and other challenges, productions for the 70 mm IMAX are rare. The IMAX cameras are heavy and new versions with reduced noise had to be developed to be usable for making “The Odyssey.”
The film print sent to theaters is so big — weighing some 300 kilograms (661 pounds) and 18 kilometers (11 miles) long — that it has to be delivered to theaters in parts. The movie and the projector have to be in a climatized room and the projectionists need to be approved by IMAX for the job.
As movie theaters around the globe were acquiring digital IMAX equipment around 2008, the Cinema City decided not to get rid of the original analogue projector in Prague. It was placed in a corner for three years until 2012 to screen Nolan’s “The Dark Knight Rises.”
It was used to show several others, including Nolan’s “Interstellar” in 2014 and “Oppenheimer” three years ago.
“We’re really grateful to him for that,” projectionist Tomáš Vyšinský said about his predecessor who saved the equipment.
