Nothing is going to keep Amber Connaghan, a 29-year-old tech editor who lives in the California desert, from seeing Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” on opening day. Connaghan bought her ticket over a year ago and has been gearing up for the three-hour drive to the closest theater playing the film in Imax 70mm.
“One of my friends got pregnant last year, and she’s like, ‘OK, it’s time for you to have your second child,’” says Connaghan. “I was like, ‘No, I have to wait a few months. Otherwise, it’s going to be too close to ‘The Odyssey.’”
Connaghan isn’t the only movie fan who is going to extremes to watch Odysseus’ perilous return to Ithaca in the biggest, most pristine format available. Nolan’s decision to film Homer’s epic entirely with Imax cameras — the first film to do so — has set off a mad dash for tickets to Imax screenings in general and a near frenzy for those select showings in Imax 70mm. Because many Imax auditoriums don’t have the capacity to showcase movies in 70mm, people are crossing state lines, snapping up tickets to multiple showtimes months in advance or even settling for 2 a.m. screenings of the nearly three-hour epic just so they can be part of the moviegoing phenomenon.
