Christopher Nolan Goes Bigger Than Ever With The Odyssey

Christopher Nolan isn’t exactly a guy who’s ever been accused of “thinking small,” and he’s not about to start now. Fresh off his monster Oscar win for Oppenheimer, Nolan’s already back at it with a new project that, frankly, sounds like the definition of “go big or go home.” His next film? The Odyssey. Yes, that Odyssey — Homer’s epic, the OG road trip, but with sea monsters.

So, what’s Nolan been up to this time? Well, if you thought Oppenheimer’s black-and-white IMAX footage was pushing boundaries, just wait. Nolan is reportedly shooting The Odyssey entirely on IMAX cameras, which, if you know IMAX, means reels so gigantic the post-production folks (and their scissors) get a serious workout.

During a recent 60 Minutes segment (with some snippets teased by Variety), Nolan actually let cameras inside his editing room for this. And here’s where it gets old-school: the editing bay is running the film through good old-fashioned analog IMAX workflows — we’re talking literal filmstrips, cut and pasted by hand, in what’s apparently the last lab that still works this way. It sounds almost ancient now, but for Nolan, it seems to be part of the magic.

As Nolan put it:

"In taking on The Odyssey, it does become about scale. It needed to be the biggest film that we had done. It needed to be challenging for all of us, because that’s the nature of the story."

There’s some serious flex here: not only does The Odyssey come with massive practical effects and all the technological bells and whistles (including new IMAX camera tech, which is a whole saga of its own), but it’s trying to honor one of the oldest tales ever told with a format that Nolan obviously thinks is the only way to do it justice — giant screens, surround sound, the works.

What’s Up With Nolan and IMAX?

At this point, it’s basically his brand. Remember, Oppenheimer literally forced Kodak to invent new black-and-white IMAX film just to film those “outside Oppenheimer’s perspective” sequences. Dunkirk, Interstellar, The Dark Knight… he’s been pushing the format (and probably the patience of studio accounting departments) for years.

There’s also this — Nolan’s not just in it for technical bragging rights. He actually seems to care about treating the source right, and for him, that means adapting The Odyssey as enormous, communal cinema — the closest thing a multiplex can get to a bunch of people gathered around a fire hearing a story. He did it for Batman, he went maximalist for Oppenheimer, and now, with The Odyssey, he’s literally blowing the doors off any expectation of “just another myth adaptation.”

The Big Picture

• Shooting entire film in IMAX, edited the old-school way on actual filmstrips
• Analog editing suite used is the last of its kind (yes, practically a museum piece)
• The previous project (Oppenheimer) demanded brand new IMAX film stock, so “custom” is pretty much the norm for Nolan now
• This is apparently Nolan’s largest production ever — no digital shortcuts, just lots of ambition (and probably a massive footprint for every reel)
• The IMAX 70MM release is planned for July — expect every cinephile and Homer nerd to be there

Honestly, in a landscape where most epics get squeezed onto streaming, Nolan’s latest is about as extreme a bet on theatrical spectacle as you’re going to see. If you want to know if big-screen movies still matter, he’s putting a stake in the ground — or maybe a javelin in the sand?