Nolan’s The Odyssey IMAX Tickets Sell Out a Year Before Release

Tickets for Christopher Nolan’s much-anticipated adaptation of Homer’s Odyssey have already sold out – despite the film not yet being completed and its release still a year away, making this one of the longest pre-sales in cinema history.

Starring Matt Damon as Odysseus, the epic is scheduled to hit theatres on 17 July 2026. Yet, on Thursday, IMAX opened ticket sales for the initial screenings across 26 IMAX theatres worldwide equipped to project the film in Nolan’s favoured 1570 format – the largest, highest-resolution film format, known for its 15 perforations per frame and 70mm height.

The pre-sale covers only the opening weekend (16–19 July 2026), with just one screening per cinema per day due to the unknown runtime. In Melbourne, around 1,800 tickets were snapped up overnight. “Selling tickets a year early isn’t typical, but Nolan is worth it,” joked Jeremy Fee, Imax Melbourne’s general manager.

In the US, tickets were gone within an hour, with scalpers reselling them online for $300–$400. London’s BFI IMAX and the Science Museum IMAX have also sold out. Nolan, a long-time Imax advocate since The Dark Knight (2008), is shooting The Odyssey entirely on Imax film cameras, following the success of Oppenheimer (2023), which grossed $975.8 million globally, with Imax screenings contributing $190 million.

Fee anticipates The Odyssey will surpass Oppenheimer’s success, drawing “cinema tourists” who plan trips around screenings. He noted this pre-sale is just a fraction of the total tickets that will be available closer to release, urging fans not to buy from scalpers.