Avid film buffs are rushing to secure IMAX tickets for Christopher Nolan's "The Odyssey," with demand on the first day of IMAX advance sales nearly overwhelming ticketing sites.
On social media, eager fans of the Oscar-winning director complained about long lines for tickets to his adaptation of Homer's epic poem, starring Matt Damon, with online queues appearing on AMC and Fandango's websites on Thursday.
An AMC representative declined to comment, but a source familiar with ticketing site software claims that major movie theater chains like AMC use software to prevent server crashes due to excessive traffic by implementing a queuing system when large numbers of moviegoers attempt to purchase tickets for a particular film or showtime. Such systems were implemented back in 2023, when tickets for Taylor Swift's "The Eras Tour" concert film went on sale.
On Thursday morning, this glitch prevented wait times on the AMC website reaching up to an hour. When TheWrap attempted to access AMC's webpage for the film "The Odyssey," the wait time was 43 minutes.
Nolan has long been a proponent of IMAX, having created films like Interstellar and the Oscar-winning Best Picture film Oppenheimer, and The Odyssey made history as the first film shot entirely on IMAX cameras, thanks to a new fleet of lighter cameras that allowed Nolan's cinematographer, Hoyte van Hoytema, to shoot action scenes and naval sequences that would have been impossible with previous IMAX cameras.
This makes the format the definitive way to view Nolan's film, making IMAX screenings a must-see across the country. In an unprecedented move, Universal released the opening weekend schedule for The Odyssey in nine theaters showing the film in 70mm IMAX a full year in advance, leading to tickets selling out almost immediately.
IMAX even played up its connection to The Odyssey by releasing the first-ever popcorn bucket to coincide with the film's release.
The article "Odyssey Ticket Delays Lead to Backups on Pre-Order Sites and Hours-Like Lines During Taylor Swift's 'Eras' Tour" first appeared on TheWrap.