The Odyssey IMAX Screenings Sell Out as Japanese Celebrities Weigh In
Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey began IMAX advance screenings in Japan on September 4, and demand is running ahead of supply. Grand Cinema Sunshine Ikebukuro sold out every showing for September 4 and 5 within hours of tickets going on sale, and other Tokyo theaters reported sold-out screenings piling up. The advance run continues through September 10, ahead of the nationwide release on September 11. The screenings arrived with a wave of celebrity comments. Director Lee Sang-il called the film "a movie at the extreme point," manga artist Mari Yamazaki said it showed the maturity of film history, and game creator Hideo Kojima praised the all-IMAX presentation as "an Odyssey no one has seen." Astronaut Soichi Noguchi, who returned from space, said the story of a hero carrying guilt after war left him in awe. The film, based on Homer's epic and starring Matt Damon as Odysseus, is the first feature shot entirely with IMAX cameras. Its worldwide box office reached $1.5526 billion (about 251.5 billion yen) as of August 30, the highest for a Nolan film and the highest ever for an R-rated release.