“A Journey Begins” is the tagline for Christopher Nolan‘s next film “The Odyssey.” Few movie lovers expected the quest to start so early. Imax tickets for “The Odyssey” will go on sale on July 17, 2025 — an entire year before Universal Pictures’ star-studded action epic is slated to hit the big screen. But there’s a caveat: Tickets will only be available at movie theaters with Imax 70mm screens (the director’s preferred format) — and just for select showtimes. Tickets for other formats and screenings are likely to go on sale much, much closer to the film’s release date.
Universal and Imax declined to comment.
It’s rare that a studio would put tickets on sale so far in advance, but anticipation is high for Nolan’s cinematic follow-up to 2023’s “Oppenheimer,” which further confirmed the director as a box office draw after generating a staggering $975 million globally and winning the Oscar for best picture. A roughly minute-long teaser trailer for “The Odyssey” was recently unveiled exclusively in cinemas ahead of screenings for “Jurassic World Rebirth” and “Superman,” debuting over a year before the film’s release date. The teaser has yet to officially debut online, keeping with Nolan’s longstanding prioritization of the big screen experience. An adaptation of the Homer’s Greek epic, “The Odyssey” stars Matt Damon as Odysseus, the king of Ithaca, and chronicles his long and perilous return home after the Trojan War. The starry ensemble includes Tom Holland as Odysseus’ son Telemachus, as well as Anne Hathaway, Zendaya, Lupita Nyong’o, Robert Pattinson, Charlize Theron and Jon Bernthal. Nolan is re-teaming with Universal, the studio that backed “Oppenheimer.” The film will be released on July 17, 2026.
“The Odyssey” will be the first movie shot entirely with Imax cameras. Nolan has been a loyalist to the high-tech format ever since his 2008 superhero epic “The Dark Knight” became the first Hollywood release to utilize Imax cameras for select action sequences. Since then, Nolan has used Imax cameras on films such as 2010’s “Inception,” 2014’s “Interstellar” and 2020’s “Tenet.” In the case of “Oppenheimer,” some cinephiles crossed state lines to catch the film in Imax. As a result of the outsized demand, the premium format contributed a massive 20% of overall box office grosses for the best picture winner.