Christopher Nolan said in May 2025 that The Odyssey would be the first feature film shot entirely with Imax 70mm cameras, and AMC Lincoln Square has become one of the clearest signs that the format still moves premium ticket buyers. Imax 70mm screenings of the film were sold out for weeks, even as the movie moved toward $650 million globally.
Christopher Nolan and AMC Lincoln Square
The film has earned $140 million in Imax, a figure that helps explain why the format is suddenly part of the business conversation again. The Odyssey cost $250 million to produce, used two million feet of film, and carried roughly $3 million in raw film stock alone at about $1.50 per foot.
One print of the film costs $50,000, and an Imax source said it is up to the studio how many prints it actually wants to create. That puts the premium run in plain business terms: the format can pull money, but it also requires a studio to decide how far it wants to push distribution.
Denis Villeneuve on Imax 70mm
Denis Villeneuve added the clearest evidence that Nolan may not be the only filmmaker testing the limit. At a trailer event for Dune: Part Three, he said much of the film was shot on Imax 70mm film, kept the desert in digital because he likes “the brutality of the digital Imax,” and said, “I hope I will have the chance to do it again.”
That is the practical opening here: the format is no longer just a Nolan signature. Villeneuve’s comments show a working director making partial use of the same large-format tools and signaling interest in returning, which gives the market another example to watch when studios weigh whether the premium format is worth the cost and logistics.
Imax cameras and blimps
An Imax source said there are enough cameras and blimps to make a fully Imax-shot film happen if filmmakers wanted to do it. That removes the easy excuse and leaves the harder obstacle in place: the cameras are expensive, loud, and cumbersome, so the barrier is not availability but commitment.
Ryan Coogler has already shot sequences of Sinners using 15-perf Imax film and Ultra Panavision 70, and Marvel Studio said at Comic Con that Black Panther 3 will partially be shot in large format on 70mm film. Nolan opened the door, Villeneuve stepped closer to it, and the next test is whether another filmmaker actually goes all the way.
