‘The Odyssey’ Imax Tickets Will Go on Sale a Year Before Christopher Nolan’s Epic Opens in Theaters

“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 the Universal Pictures 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.

Universal’s marketing department is already getting to work before “The Odyssey” has even completed production. A roughly minute-long teaser trailer for “The Odyssey” was recently unveiled exclusively in cinemas ahead of screenings for “Jurassic World Rebirth” and “Superman,” stoking excitement 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” to give them a certain scope and scale.

“Oppenheimer” in particular became a force in Imax, with the premium format contributing a massive 20% of overall box office grosses. Some cinephiles crossed state lines to see the film in 70mm Imax, selling out auditoriums for weeks. By putting tickets for “The Odyssey” on sale this far in advance, it’s clear that Universal and Imax expect Nolan’s latest to drive a similar demand on the world’s biggest and brightest screens.

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