Christopher Nolan’s upcoming movie The Odyssey is making history as the first commercial feature film shot entirely on IMAX film cameras. But achieving this milestone came with major technical hurdles that pushed the director and his team to their limits.
The filmmaker, known for Oppenheimer, Dunkirk, and The Dark Knight trilogy, has always loved IMAX. He first used the format for action scenes in The Dark Knight and gradually increased its use in later films. For The Odyssey, which arrives in theaters on July 17, 2026, he wanted to go all the way.
“It needed to be the biggest film that we had done,” Nolan said in a 60 Minutes interview. “It needed to be challenging to all of us, because that’s the nature of the story.”
The 400-Pound Challenge That Almost Stopped Production
The biggest problem Nolan faced was the noise. IMAX film cameras are famously loud, making it nearly impossible to record dialogue during intimate scenes.
“The cameras are so noisy. It’s a very, very noisy camera,” Nolan explained on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. “What we needed was a way to get an IMAX camera that you could actually shoot the dialogue.”
To solve this, Nolan challenged IMAX to create new technology. The company built a special soundproof housing called a “blimp system” that encases the camera. This setup weighs around 400 pounds.
“When it was all put together, it weighed over 300 pounds. They had to build special steel plating on the dollies to hold it,” said Matt Damon, who plays Odysseus in the film.
The bulky equipment created another problem. Because the camera was so large, actors could not maintain proper eye contact during two-person scenes. The camera’s position made their eye lines look wrong.
The team solved this by using mirrors. Actors looked at mirrors placed near the camera lens, which reflected their faces back to the camera. “It worked beautifully,” Damon said.
A Journey Across Six Countries
The Odyssey filmed in Morocco, Greece, Italy, Iceland, Scotland, and other locations. The production moved countries every couple of weeks during the shoot.
“One of the things I like about shooting on location is we’re moving countries every couple of weeks. It gives you this incredible momentum,” Nolan said.
Matt Damon called it the hardest movie he has ever made. “It was the hardest movie I’ve ever done by far. Not even close,” he said. He also mentioned the physical demands, with Nolan joking that they “nearly drowned” him during storm scenes.
Editing Film by Hand in a Digital World
The old-school approach continued in the editing room. Nolan and his team went to FotoKem in Burbank, California, the last motion picture film lab that produces 70mm prints.
“Every cut in the film—and there are thousands of cuts in the film—is done this way, by hand,” Nolan said, watching a technician physically cut and glue film negatives together. “It makes me nervous just watching him.”
IMAX film offers image quality up to three times higher than digital cameras. “That’s the highest quality imaging format that’s ever been devised,” Nolan said. “There’s nothing that competes with it.”
New IMAX Cameras Built Just for This Film
IMAX built four new film cameras specifically for The Odyssey. These cameras, called the IMAX Keighley Film Camera, are 30% quieter than previous models and feature a carbon-fiber body for lighter operation.
Nolan has exclusive use of all four cameras. They will become available for other directors to rent after production wraps.
IMAX CEO Rich Gelfond said Nolan called him and said, “If you can figure out how to solve the problems, I will make [Odyssey] 100 percent in IMAX.”
How the Film Is Shaping Up
Nolan admitted feeling anxious about the film’s release. “It’s very nerve-racking. You work on something a long time, you care about it a lot, but movies belong to the audience. So it’s kind of in the eye of the beholder,” Nolan told The New York Times.
Despite the challenges, Nolan felt confident halfway through production. “Halfway through the shoot, Hoyte and I kind of looked at each other and realized, ‘Yep, this is gonna work,’” Nolan said.
The film stars Matt Damon as Odysseus, Anne Hathaway as his wife Penelope, Tom Holland as their son, and Zendaya, Robert Pattinson, Lupita Nyong’o, and Charlize Theron in other roles. Musician Travis Scott also appears as a bard.
The movie runs close to three hours and uses practical effects rather than heavy CGI. IMAX screenings started selling out almost a year ago.
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Encouraging Other Directors to Use IMAX
Nolan said helping other filmmakers embrace IMAX has been one of the greatest satisfactions of his career. He mentioned that director Ryan Coogler called him before shooting his film Sinners to ask if using IMAX made sense.
“I was like, no, I’d love to see that,” Nolan recalled.
“My excitement for having finished [The Odyssey] entirely in IMAX is: what other filmmakers might want to do that,” Nolan said. “I just want to go see somebody else’s film when they do it this way.”
The Odyssey will release in theaters worldwide on July 17, 2026. The India premiere is scheduled at PVR Icon IMAX: Phoenix Palladium in Mumbai, with Nolan, producer Emma Thomas, Matt Damon, and Tom Holland expected to attend.
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