An odyssey is a journey of homecoming, but the trek to the AMC Lincoln Square on the Upper West Side of Manhattan to watch this summer’s blockbuster in the wee hours of a Sunday morning was closer to a pilgrimage. Filmgoers were driven by a need to see the adaptation of Homer’s epic, “The Odyssey,” as its director, Christopher Nolan, had intended: in IMAX 70-millimeter film, a format optimized for both detail and scale. AMC Lincoln Square’s fourth-floor theater has the largest IMAX screen in the United States and accommodated the surging demand by offering screenings at 2 a.m. and 6 a.m.
There are plenty of tickets available to see “The Odyssey” in standard format across the city — the film hauled in $124.5 million at the box office in its first weekend. But the IMAX 70-millimeter screenings are all but sold out, which is why around 450 New Yorkers dragged themselves to the theater when they might otherwise be calling it a night.
“It’s definitely an event,” said Ellis Tan, a photographer and videographer who had traveled from Westchester County.
Dash Suarez, a student at the Manhattan Center for Science and Mathematics, felt it was worth it. “I don’t think there’s a compromise in any section of his storytelling,” said Suarez, who attended the 2 a.m. screening with five pajama-clad friends. Two of them had read “The Odyssey.”
Amanda Quinonez, who was sitting in a front-row seat, said she too had read “The Odyssey” — “too many times” by her estimation. The first time Quinonez read it, she was in high school in Texas — but she can’t recall which translation.
Likely it was not the widely acclaimed translation by Emily Wilson, the chair of the Classical studies department at the University of Pennsylvania and the first woman to publish an English translation of the ancient Greek poem in its entirety. Nolan is said to have relied on hers, much to the consternation of conservatives, who have taken issue with her translation, as well as some of Nolan’s casting choices, accusing him of “wokeness.” All of that appeared to have held little resonance among the young and diverse crowd who arrived at Broadway and West 68th Street late on Saturday night for the Sunday showing.
Seats for the IMAX theater at Lincoln Square were so elusive that many moviegoers were OK with grabbing tickets for the nearly three-hour film for the graveyard shift. (Online, tickets were reportedly being resold for hundreds of dollars.) In fact, some even embraced it as a reason to do something a little unusual.
“I feel like we’re part of something kind of exclusive,” Quinonez said.
Even a little scarcity proved thrilling. “I’m happy there was a struggle to get tickets,” said Shreyas Kotla, a college student who had traveled to Manhattan from Washington D.C. specifically to see “The Odyssey.” Kotla prepared by taking a nap earlier that day.
Short-form video may yet prove the demise of cinema. For the filmgoers who surrendered a night of sleep to see the arrogant suitor Antinous (Robert Pattinson) get his just deserts, their sold-out screening was proof that a movie theater is an experience that no laptop or microwaved popcorn can replicate.
“When people say film is dying — no, it’s not,” Kotla said.
Dennis Corrales showed up to the 6 a.m. screening with an iced coffee in hand. He wore a T-shirt celebrating “Barbenheimer” — the simultaneous release in 2023 of two very different blockbusters, Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” (about the doll) and Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” (about the nuclear scientist).
Corrales saw “Oppenheimer” at AMC Lincoln Square too. “Tickets weren’t so in demand yet because no one really knew about that format,” he explained, alluding to the growing awareness of the IMAX 70-millimeter format at that time. “Oppenheimer” was widely celebrated as a masterpiece, but “The Odyssey” has arguably topped that nuclear drama in spectacle and ambition, having been the first feature film to be fully shot in IMAX.
“Now the demand is crazy,” Corrales said. AMC said it would continue showing the film after midnight through mid-August at the Lincoln Square location.
Mordechai Levovitz, founder of Jewish Queer Youth, showed up at the theater soon after 2 a.m. He was hoping to score a seat for the sold-out 6 a.m. showing, should anyone forgo theirs at the last minute. He went to the ticket kiosk in the theater’s deserted ground floor lobby, frustrated by an interface that appeared to show an available ticket, only for it to vanish when he tried to pay for it.
He tried again for the 6 a.m. a couple hours later.
The same gods who guided Odysseus (Matt Damon) home to Ithaca smiled down on Levovitz, when a ticket for the 6 a.m. show suddenly materialized. This time, there was no glitch, no rug pulled out from under his feet.
“The movie was way more relevant than I thought,” he said, emerging after the movie into the cool, resplendent morning. “The collapse of civilization, ethics, institutions, society as we know it.”
Odysseus had returned home. Which is exactly where Levovitz was headed.
“I’m going to go to sleep,” he said.
