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Bill Hunt@BillHuntBits
The scary thing here is that IMAX can't build any more new projectors. (They apparently don't have a complete set of the engineering blueprints, most of the engineers who designed them have retired or passed away, and the parts supply chains have long since dried up.) So the goal for the foreseeable future is to upgrade and keep all the existing projectors running for as long as they can.

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Robert Meyer Burnett, Viceroy of Verisimilitude@RMBee
The 70mm IMAX, running 24/7 at the Irvine Spectrum for THE ODYSSEY, overheated today!
7:01 AM · Jul 20, 2026

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https://x.com/BillHuntBits/status/2079356971388739696

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This weekend, Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” arrives in theaters nationwide. The sprawling adaptation of Homer’s epic is the first-ever movie shot entirely on Imax film cameras. And over the past month, everyone from Matt Damon and Anne Hathaway to Nolan himself have hammered home the same message: “The Odyssey” deserves to be seen in a true Imax 70mm presentation — the way it was intended to be experienced.

But there’s a catch. Only 25 theaters in the U.S. are equipped to project “The Odyssey” in true Imax 70mm film, prompting moviegoers to embark on cross-country road trips (and even delaying pregnancies) to experience the cinematic milestone.

It doesn’t take a business degree to understand the law of supply and demand, but at “The Odyssey” premiere Tuesday night, Imax CEO Richard Gelfond explained why adding more Imax 70mm screens isn’t that simple. (The interview clip, as of Friday afternoon, has over 7.5 million views on X).

Sources at Imax confirmed to Variety that many of the parts needed to build these specialized film projectors “simply no longer exist.” The original design files were created roughly half a century ago, but as Gelfond alludes to, they were never properly maintained. As a result, Imax no longer has a complete manufacturing blueprint — and much like the lost tribal knowledge of the Apollo-era spacecraft, very few engineers working today fully understand the systems.

The loss of institutional knowledge can also be traced to Hollywood’s transition from film to digital projection that began in the late 2000s. As theaters began converting to digital projectors, which are cheaper and easier to maintain, manufacturers stopped producing film projectors and the replacement parts that go with them. Only in recent years, thanks to auteurs like Nolan and Denis Villeneuve, has interest in the format begun to rebound, even if the format remains a niche experience.

“We build new projectors every day, but film projectors using this film — it’s just not practical,” Gelfond said. “Can all 2,000 of our theaters be film projectors? No. There’s just not that many around. But I think we can continue to grow it.”

After reaching a near-record year at the box office in 2023, fueled by Nolan’s “Oppenheimer,” Imax knew it needed to expand its fleet of 70mm film projectors ahead of “The Odyssey.” For over a year, Imax embarked on a massive effort to track down broken, abandoned and often-forgotten projectors, salvaging parts to refurbish and install additional projectors. The strenuous process also required training 60 new projectionists from scratch.

Imax says it rebuilt as many film projectors as possible in-house, but some obsolete parts made it virtually impossible to find manufacturers because the components are complex to produce and the market is too small. The effort ultimately resulted in 41 Imax 70mm locations worldwide for “The Odyssey,” up from 30 for “Oppenheimer” (a net increase of 11 after one projector was lost during the process).

It’s also worth noting that Imax isn’t a distributor. The company designs and manufactures cameras and projection systems, then sells or licenses them to exhibitors like AMC Theatres. Just last year, Imax and AMC struck a deal to add 12 new Imax locations across the U.S. and upgrade 68 existing locations to Imax With Laser.

But expanding Imax 70mm is a different challenge. Imax says exhibitors aren’t building enough auditoriums capable of housing its towering 1.43:1 screens because of the high construction costs. So even if Imax magically figured out a way to manufacture more 70mm projectors, there are relatively few theaters where they could actually be installed.

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https://variety.com/2026/film/news/why-n...lan-1236813019/

Ich glaube Nolan wird, als m.E. letzter Regisseur seiner Art sich auf kurz oder lang auch damit abfinden müssen, dass das Kino stirbt und die Leute Filme lieber streamen und zu Hause anschauen. Auch wenn er seine Machwerke, die auf extrem volatilen Krach-Bumm-Sound und IMAX-Weite optimiert sind dann etwas ändern muss.

Fun fact: Ich bin selbst ein großer Fan der Nolan-Filme, habe aber noch keinen einzigen davon im Kino gesehen weil ich die "Kinoerfahrung" einfach schon immer gehasst hab wie die Pest. Schaut man sich die Filme dann zu Hause an, muss man als erstes des Problem der Soundkompression in den Griff bekommen, weil die Lautstärke der Filme sonst zwischen unhörbaren Gesprächen und Explosionen, die einem die Boxen zerfetzen variiert. Ich kann mich erinnern auf Reddit mal einen Thread gefunden zu haben, der sich nur darum gedreht hat im VLC-Player aus den Nolan-Filmen den Nolan-Sound rauszumischen....