Ever the Imax advocate, Christopher Nolan recalled introducing Ryan Coogler to the high-res format.
The 2x Oscar winner recently noted that he assured Coogler it “wasn’t crazy” using Imax to film his 2025 film Sinners, which earned Autumn Durald Arkapaw the Academy Award for Best Cinematography.
“Ryan called me before he committed to Imax,” he told The New York Times. “I think Dunkirk was the first time I dragged him to a screening of an original-made film print of Imax. I love to show filmmakers the potential of the format.
“So he called me when he was prepping, but really I think he was sort of looking for someone to tell him it wasn’t crazy to shoot his vampire film that way. I was like, no, I’d love to see that,” added Nolan.
Nolan’s The Odyssey has become the first film to be shot entirely with Imax cameras. He previously used Imax in making Oppenheimer (2023), Tenet (2020), Dunkirk (2017), Interstellar (2014), The Dark Knight Rises (2012), Inception (2010) and The Dark Knight (2008).
Delroy Lindo, Michael B. Jordan and director Ryan Coogler on the set of ‘Sinners’ (2025) (Eli Ade/Warner Bros/Courtesy Everett Collection)
“One of the great satisfactions of my career has been being part of an evolutionary process of a [filmmaking] system,” said Nolan of The Odyssey, premiering July 17. “My excitement for having finished the film entirely in Imax is: what other filmmakers might want to do that. I just want to go see somebody else’s film when they do it this way.”
An adaptation of one of the first stories in human history, The Odyssey follows Odysseus (Matt Damon) through the incredible trials and mythical encounters he faces on his decade-long journey home to wife Penelope after the Trojan War.
The film also stars Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Zendaya, Lupita Nyong’o, Robert Pattinson, Charlize Theron, Jon Bernthal, Benny Safdie, John Leguizamo, Elliot Page, Himesh Patel, Bill Irwin, Samantha Morton, Jesse Garcia, Will Yun Lee, Rafi Gavron, Shiloh Fernandez, Mia Goth and more.
