If you try to book Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey in glorious IMAX 70mm as a last-minute trip to the pictures, you'll most likely be disappointed. Take a look at the BFI IMAX's booking page for the film, and you will see that showings are fully booked until the end of September.
There are other ways to watch it in the cinema (including Dolby Vision or standard IMAX), but our TV and AV editor, Tom Parsons, rated his experience with IMAX 70mm highly, going so far as to report:
“Perhaps surprisingly, I’m not usually one to make the effort for IMAX, but with The Odyssey being the first movie to be shot entirely in 65mm, I felt a trip to the Science Museum’s IMAX screen was justified [...] I wasn’t wrong: while the movie itself sits in around 7/10 territory for me, as a cinematic experience, it was a clear 10/10.”
So if you want the best experience possible, IMAX 70mm is the way to go, and you are currently out of luck.
But as a silver lining, if you have been holding out to watch the film from the comfort of your own home, there is some good news. The Odyssey will be released on 4K Blu-ray and digital on the same day: the 17th of November.
That date is just for US viewers, so those of us in the UK and Australia will have to hang on a little longer to find out when we can watch the epic at home.
It’s rare for a film to be released on physical media at the same time as digital, and I’m pleased to see Nolan and his team take this approach. Increasingly, movies are pushed onto streaming platforms quickly after their cinema release or skip theatre showings entirely. Hopefully it's the start of a new trend.
The only minor downside is that Universal has not confirmed what aspect ratio it will be released in for either format. The only inkling we got came from Flatpanels HD, which reported that it will be available in 1.78.1 for the 4K Blu-ray. That’s a little shorter than the IMAX 70mm ratio, so you are not quite getting the full picture.
In terms of sound, Flatpanels also states that early reports hint that DTS-HD 5.1 surround sound is on the cards. That makes sense considering Nolan tends to avoid Dolby Atmos, with the 4K Blu-ray releases of Oppenheimer and Tenet both featuring DTS-HD 5.1.
You can sign up to be notified about pre-order of The Odyssey for the 4K Blu-ray, although the design is yet to be unveiled.
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