Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is keeping its momentum from a massive opening weekend as it enters its third week in theaters.
New Imax screenings of the film are in such high demand that people are scouring social media to find out about new ticket drops for showings at all hours of the day and night—even 6 a.m.
AMC Theatres said The Odyssey—which was shot entirely with Imax 70 mm film cameras, and meant to be viewed on Imax 1.43:1 screens—continues to break box-office records, making the film the “most successful IMAX run in AMC’s history” in just its first two weeks.
After the July 17 opening weekend took in $124.5 million in the U.S. and Canada, The Odyssey went on to make another $87 million over its second weekend, earning some $286 million in North America, and approximately $640 million worldwide (as of Sunday, July 26). Imax screens are singularly responsible for a significant percentage of those ticket sales, according to AMC.
But perhaps the real quest is the one moviegoers are on—to score tickets at one of only 25 movie theaters across the country (41 internationally) that actually show the adaptation of the Greek epic in Imax 70 mm.
Last week, Variety reported 70-mm-screening tickets were sold out through August 19 in New York and Los Angeles, and through September 10 in London. Meanwhile, AMC, which operates about half of all Imax screens in the U.S, said many of its 70-mm showings are sold out through mid-August nationwide.
In New York, Reddit users swapped info about where to get tickets, complaining “I can’t live like this” about the clunky ticket processing platform.
While frustration with technology abounds in every market, one Redditor says New Yorkers have some hope of seeing it at the AMC Lincoln Square 13—where the film has been showing around the clock from Friday to Sunday. They just have to get tickets the old-fashioned way.
“At this point i think you’re guaranteed a ticket if you wait in line at Lincoln and get it physically there,” one user said in a thread about nabbing tickets at that theater. “My bf had to do that for the first drop.”
The Odyssey blockbuster is based on one of two ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer from the 8th or 7th century B.C.E. It recounts the legendary king of Ithaca’s lengthy journey home following the Trojan War. (The second poem is “The Iliad.”)
The film’s demand has helped it surpass the lifetime box-office take for writer-director Nolan’s previous movie, 2023’s Oppenheimer, in just 13 days. The continued furor for tickets suggests that The Odyssey will likely continue to break box-office records.