Christopher Nolan‘s The Odyssey would have been longer if not for one thing. The director is known to go all-in on his sets to provide audiences with a realistic experience. However, one technical limitation forced him to keep the film shorter than he originally intended.
What prevented The Odyssey from having a longer runtime?
The Odyssey will release in theaters soon. The official runtime for the movie is 2 hours and 52 minutes. However, Nolan wanted to extend the movie’s runtime beyond the 3-hour mark. The director could not extend the runtime because the movie was intended for IMAX 70mm film presentation, whose platter system imposes runtime limitations.
Although this was a major first for the director, IMAX Cameras have their limitations. In an interview with Letterboxd, he mentioned that IMAX’s David Keighley dragged him into the booth at an audience screening to show him the final limitation of this three-hour limit on the film prints. (via World of Reel)
He stated, “Over the years, I’d challenged him to enlarge the platters or come up with a clip system to hold the film end when it got a bit bigger than the platter.” However, this could only happen if the entire projection system was rebuilt.
In the end, Nolan could not ignore the technical limitations of the IMAX cameras, as 70mm prints cannot exceed 165 minutes. He decided to keep his Greek retelling under three hours. Yet, he managed to exceed the limit with non-IMAX post-credits.
He also said he cut a significant amount of footage, and it was a “challenge” to choose which scenes made the final cut. Nolan told the editor, Jennifer Lane, “If it doesn’t serve the story, it has to go.”
Regardless, The Odyssey remains one of Nolan’s most ambitious films to date. He has described shooting the film with IMAX cameras as a longtime goal. Moreover, it was revealed that the Oscar winner has also received his first songwriting credit. The Greek epic, starring Matt Damon, Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Robert Pattinson, and more, will hit theaters on July 17, 2026.
