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IMAX Tickets for Christopher Nolan’s THE ODYSSEY Going On Sale a Year Before Film’s Release

Originally posted on Nerdist | By Michael Walsh | Last updated Jul 15, 2025 8:15 PM ET

Universal Pictures is taking the “epic” in “epic poem” super seriously when it comes to Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey. The Oppenheimer director is shooting his big budget adaptation, currently in the middle of production, entirely with his beloved IMAX cameras. It will be the first movie ever filmed that way. The studio also released a theatrical trailer for the movie ahead of Jurassic World Rebirth, despite, again, very much still being made. We don’t even know who most of the people in the movie are even playing yet! Now Universal is doing something that sounds like it can’t possibly be real, though it very much is. IMAX tickets for Nolan’s The Odyssey will soon go on sale one whole year before you can actually use them.

Matt Damon as Odysseus in The Odyssey, wearing Grecian Empire garb. Universal Pictures

Variety reports that starting on July 17, 2025 moviegoers will be able to purchase tickets for select showings of The Odyssey. That wouldn’t be particularly noteworthy if not for the fact it doesn’t come out until July 17, 2026.

This is, uh, not normal for a very obvious reason. Do you know if you’ll be free one whole year from today? Can you safely pre-buy tickets to a movie 365 days in advance? If so, congratulations! I don’t know what I’m doing for dinner tonight.

Universal Pictures

Despite this feeling far more like an original type of promotions, we expect this limited pre-sale to work. For one this movie already feels like a big deal. The other reason is that not many tickets will go on sale. Fans can only get them for IMAX theaters with 70mm screens. Even then it will only be for certain showtimes. Other screenings, both large format and otherwise, should go on sale much closer to the film’s release.

In fairness to Universal Pictures, in some ways this is a fitting way to promote this movie. It took Odysseus an unusually long time to get home from the Trojan War. Now it’ll take an unusually long time for moviegoers to use their movie tickets to see how he finally did.

This article first appeared on Nerdist and was syndicated with permission.

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