Christopher Nolan certainly has the “go big or go home” mentality. When he pioneered the usage of IMAX cameras on Hollywood movies when they were primarily used for nature documentaries, Nolan has never truly looked back. Even with movies like Oppenheimer, which was more of a talky character drama, he utilized the technology as fully as he could. After Oppenheimer became a massive success, Nolan challenged IMAX boss Rich Gelfond. Gelfond explained, “A year before Chris started filming The Odyssey, he called me and said he wanted to make a whole film shot with IMAX cameras.”
According to Deadline, Gelfond added, “That couldn’t be done for a lot of reasons. There were lots of issues.” IMAX cameras are famously bulky and noisy since they are shooting on the highest-grade film available. But Nolan would persist as Gelfond expounded that Nolan said to him, “‘I’m going to give you a challenge. If you can figure out how to solve these problems, I’m going to make Odyssey 100% film with film with IMAX cameras’, and we’ve solved his problems. So, this will be the first film ever, at least filmed 100% with IMAX cameras.”
Gelfond stated at a Cannes lunch presser, “Chris forced us to rethink how we operated our film side of our business in different ways, so we have a program now to train new projectionists, and we’re putting more parts around the world, and we’re working harder at developing spare parts, and we’re looking at ancillary things like film recorders and film scanners. You know, it’s not just a camera thing. It kind of was a challenge to look at our business in a different way. And I’m glad he gave us that challenge.”
When Universal Pictures officially announced the project last year, the studio described it as “a mythic action epic shot across the world using brand new IMAX film technology.” Production is well into its schedule and some reports state that this could be Nolan’s most expensive film to date. It’s expected to cost $250 million but could very easily go higher. Nolan even filmed part of the film on Favignana, Sicily’s “Goat Island,” which is “believed to be the place where Homer envisioned Odysseus landed with his motley crew to barbecue goats and stock up on food. The idyllic isle is part of the Egadi archipelago off of Sicily’s north-west coast.”
