‘The Odyssey’ Keeps Dominating IMAX Screens Like It’s the Only Movie Out There

Premium formats have become an increasingly important part of the box office equation, but few films have leaned on that trend quite like Christopher Nolan’s latest epic. What started as an ambitious technical gamble, shooting an entire feature using IMAX film cameras for the first time ever, has turned into one of the format’s defining success stories of the decade.

That success has only grown more pronounced as the film’s theatrical run stretches deeper into its second month. Rather than fading the way most premium-format bumps typically do after a few weeks, ‘The Odyssey‘ has continued pulling outsized numbers from IMAX screens even as its overall weekend grosses naturally decline.

Over half of this past weekend’s business for ‘The Odyssey’ in North America came from IMAX screens, according to Gitesh Pandya. A whopping $8 million of the film’s $14.3 million weekend gross, or 56%, came from IMAX, including those popular 70mm screens that continue running at near-sell-out levels.

That IMAX dominance has held remarkably steady across the film’s entire 45-day domestic run. Of the $563.8 million the film has grossed domestically to date, $195 million, or roughly 34%, has come specifically from IMAX’s 444 screens, a disproportionate share given how small a fraction of total domestic screens that represents.

The film’s opening weekend set the tone for that pattern early on, with IMAX reporting nearly $30 million in ticket sales that first weekend alone, representing around 24% of the domestic opening haul. That share has only grown since then, climbing from roughly a quarter of weekend business at launch to well over half more recently.

Globally, the numbers tell an even bigger story. ‘The Odyssey’ has now grossed $346.4 million worldwide in IMAX, making it the highest-grossing IMAX release of all time and pushing IMAX screens to account for 26% of the film’s total global box office to date.

Much of that success traces back to Nolan and cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema’s decision to shoot the entire film using IMAX film cameras, developing new camera technology specifically with IMAX to make it possible. That technical commitment has translated directly into audience demand, with IMAX’s rare 70mm screenings, of which there are only 41 in the world, consistently selling out well into September.

IMAX CEO Rich Gelfond has repeatedly pointed to the film’s performance as unprecedented for the company, noting that ‘The Odyssey’ helped deliver IMAX’s best year ever at the global box office and its fastest run yet to reach $100 million domestically in the format. The film has already overtaken Nolan’s own ‘Oppenheimer’ as his top IMAX earner, doing so in a fraction of the time.

With IMAX screens expected to keep showing the film through at least mid-September, and moviegoers clearly still willing to pay premium prices for the format, ‘The Odyssey’s’ IMAX dominance shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon.

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