Editorial: Selling IMAX Tickets One Year Before the Release is Bad
by Alex Billington
July 18, 2025
“Her gifts were mixed with good and evil both.” On July 17th, 2025, at midnight, IMAX theaters around the world started selling tickets to next year’s release of Christopher Nolan’s movie The Odyssey. The gimmick was a “one year from now” trick to get movie geeks & Nolan fans to buy tickets now for a movie that isn’t even done filming yet. Many didn’t even know this was happening, only those closely following updates on social media and IMAX nerds who are in the know. Universal Pictures has barely even started marketing The Odyssey – arriving in theaters on July 17th, 2026 next summer. As someone who has been following movie releases for 20 years, as someone who adores and supports the theatrical experience above all else, I have to state for the record – this is a bad idea. It is indicative of a desperate, broken theatrical industry willing to use gimmicks and “exclusivity” to remain relevant. We’re in an era where any & all valid criticism is rejected and most people are not willing to see the bad side in anything. So I’m not surprised some will claim I’m crazy for saying this is bad. Rather than considering it really is bad & sets an annoying precedent.
I hope no other movies or studios do this. Please don’t start selling tickets this far out from the release. But knowing Hollywood, this might start happening more & more and it won’t be good for cinema. To dive right into it upfront: movies are not concerts. They’re not supposed to be exclusive events that you must book a year in advance. Movies are for everyone. When a movie opens in theaters, everyone is supposed to be allowed to go watch it, they should be able to book tickets. Yes, sure, the standard nowadays is usually 1 or 2 months early pre-sales begin for opening day / opening weekend (Marvel usually does this). And yes, there will be hundreds of other showtimes available at every last cinema around the world next July when this highly anticipated new movie releases. As one person on Twitter already yelled back at me: this is just one format, and a few showtimes on opening day for this one premium format. Just chill! “It’ll be fine…” It’s just way too far in advance to do this. Many people have made the joke, which is not really a joke: what if the movie is delayed? What if they have to push it back a few months? Well, everyone is screwed over… I guess?
Nolan’s The Odyssey is the first ever movie shot entirely with IMAX cameras. Every scene, every moment, everything in it is being filmed on IMAX cameras – a daunting task considering IMAX cameras are extremely heavy & large, and create a great amount of noise (when shooting on 65mm film). IMAX says they invented brand new cameras for Nolan to use on this production. Photos from the set indicate this invention is just a gigantic sound-proof box that goes over the camera so they can record dialogue and natural sounds without having to completely ADR / dub everything later in post-production. Nolan and his crew is still out filming now – they just landed in Morocco this week with Matt Damon and Zendaya and Tom Holland present. Yes it’s exciting to follow movies, from pre-production through filming through post-production to release. I’ve been doing this for 20 years. But selling tickets to a movie right now that doesn’t open for one year? That’s just ridiculous. I have no idea where I’ll be, what I’ll be doing, what will be happening in the world next July. Do you? No one does. I get that they want to hype this up, and I get that the tickets are being sold for special opening day 70mm IMAX showings but that still doesn’t change the fact that it’s a frustrating gimmick.
Here’s one big reason why this kind of exclusive distant pre-sale is bad. Did you forget (or fall asleep? or just didn’t know?) to buy your tickets when they randomly went on sale earlier this week for a movie that doesn’t open for another 12 months? There were only few hundred available for each showtime (unlike thousands at concerts). Well, too bad, you won’t be able to get 70mm IMAX tickets on opening day anymore. You missed that chance. But scalpers are now reselling them for hundreds of dollars! They might even end up hitting $1K by next summer. I bet you there are tons of people (genuine Nolan fans!!) who will find out this pre-sale happened only in 2026 and will be pissed off that everything has been sold out for the last 6 months already. Dangling the hype carrot in front of people is the easy thing to do nowadays and will always result in people thinking their excitement and eagerness to pay corporations is righteous & pure. How dare I question that! But at this point, it’s not about the movie, it’s about getting people to give their money for that excitement, and do so way ahead of the actual opening. This isn’t a one-off event. This should be a celebration of cinema, not gatekeeping. Movies are something we all experience together, not only those who booked a year early.
And yes of course, every time I mention this, someone always responds with “but there will be tons of other showtimes added for release, calm down.” Why isn’t it the other way around…? Can’t they calm down about this one-year-from-now pre-sale gimmick? I definitely want to go to the 70mm IMAX openings, too, but I don’t want to book my tickets right now. It’s way too early to even be thinking about this. Let them finish the film and start marketing it before we even start to think about buying tickets for it. Once their full marketing campaign begins in 2026, once more people hear about it, of course, maybe then we should start organizing theaters. You want to see it that way? Well unfortunately you now have to wait until September 2026 to find a 70mm IMAX ticket. Or maybe those tickets will be sold out a year in advance, too? I’m not the only one grumpy about this. Many other people have voiced their frustrations on Twitter as well. A few of them here:
Re: Odyssey tickets
I just don’t think it’s a good idea to treat movies like concerts. If this becomes a regular thing, people are going to buy and flip tickets like crazy. The movies should be for everyone, not freaks and opportunists.— Rolo Tony (@PoorOldRoloTony) July 17, 2025
“Wanna go see a midnight IMAX showing of #TheOdyssey a year from now?”
“Umm, I dunno, that’s a long way—”
“Never mind, it’s sold out.” pic.twitter.com/TVtyMh4don
— MaryAnn Johanson (she/her) (@maryannjohanson) July 17, 2025
So what do we think the second film to do the “buy 70mm imax tickets a year in advance” move now that Nolan’s The Odyssey sold out so quickly? No chance the industry will let it be a one off.
— F♯A♯∞, fka ☕️ (@coopercooperco) July 17, 2025
It’s hard to say I’m happy for everyone who got tickets now. Because no one should be fighting for tickets to see this movie right now. It’s too early. Of course, I understand that Nolan’s The Odyssey is a spectacularly unique cinematic experience as the first movie ever shot entirely with IMAX cameras. But it’s not the only movie that’s a special cinematic event. James Cameron’s Avatar 3 (aka Avatar: Fire and Ash) opens in December 2025, five months from now, and they haven’t even begun talking about tickets yet. Because they haven’t even started marketing it yet! (The first teaser trailer is out next week.) Nolan’s The Odyssey already has a teaser trailer out, but only in theaters (it’s not available online yet). There’s no reason to pull this stunt and start selling tickets in advance. In fact, many cities don’t even have this option. Where I live in Berlin, we have only one IMAX theater and it’s not setup for 70mm projection (only laser which is still stunning). There’s nowhere else near me offering the pre-sale and I’m sure this theater isn’t even thinking about tickets yet. Yes, every theater is excited about The Odyssey coming out next year. This pre-sale reeks of the industry being genuinely scared that only massive tentpole releases like The Odyssey are the only movies keeping them afloat and allowing them to make boatloads of money like they used to before the Covid-19 pandemic.
As much as this one-year-from-now ticket sale gimmick bothers me, there might be an ulterior motive for it. During the release of Ryan Coogler’s Sinners earlier this year and Nolan’s Oppenheimer a few years ago, one problem that came up in the theatrical exhibition industry: not many theaters have 70mm projectors anymore. They’re gigantic machines that cost a lot of money and require constant maintenance & technical management, along with a highly skilled (and well-paid) projectionist to run them. The industry is starting to realize that more & more movie fans prefer “special” formats like 70mm over standard digital projection. They’re worth installing. But how do you convince more theaters to install and pay a pretty penny for 70mm film projectors? You need to show them numbers. Perhaps this is a sneaky strategy from IMAX so that they can go out and convince more theaters to do this. It gives them one year of lead time. And now they can go around saying “look, we sold out hundreds of showtimes for the 70mm IMAX format one year in advance! There is huge demand!” Sure, okay, that makes sense – but can’t they prove there is huge demand without having to do this pre-sale gimmick? And most importantly, this excitement to watch 70mm IMAX releases is not sustainable year-round. Nolan can pull it off, and a few other filmmakers can draw people to theaters, but the rest of the year people might just stay home or prefer to pay normal prices for normal showtimes…
I just had to get this off my chest. I adore Christopher Nolan and his movies, I’ve been supporting watching his movies in theaters since this website started in 2006. But I am not happy with this one year early ticket trick. And I’m already worried about figuring out when the heck I’ll need to book tickets to watch the movie in IMAX in my own city. Above all else, I hope this does not set a precedent in Hollywood. And I hope we can all go enjoy the grandeur & glory of Nolan’s The Odyssey movie next year without having to think about booking tickets months in advance. Until then, I’m waiting for Universal to release the teaser trailer online so everyone can see it… What do YOU think? Did you get tickets already? Or will you wait until next year?