Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey sold 28,000 spiderman tickets at BFI Imax in 24 hours, taking £750,000 and setting a first-day on-sale record for the venue. Four opening weekend screenings disappeared in under an hour a year in advance, including a midnight showing.
BFI Imax and Nolan
BFI Imax is the UK's largest screen, and the pace of this sales run puts Nolan back in the same lane he occupied with Oppenheimer. In 2023, the venue reported the biggest opening weekend box office result of any screen in the UK for that film, then finished the initial theatrical run at BFI Imax alone with £2.2M.
The new on-sale result also clears the figures set by Nolan's recent titles at the venue. Dune: Part Two took £366,000 in the first 24 hours of on sale there, while Oppenheimer brought in £254,000 over the same window.
July 17 Opening
The Odyssey opens from July 17, so this is a booking pattern for a film still more than a year away, not a box-office finish line. The film is the first feature shot entirely on Imax 70mm with Imax cameras, and that format story is doing real work here: the audience buying now is paying for screen size, not just title recognition.
The cast includes Matt Damon, Zendaya, Robert Pattinson, Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Lupita Nyong'o and Charlize Theron, but the sales spike is being driven by Nolan's name and the venue's format premium. For anyone trying to land one of those first BFI Imax dates, the practical move is simple: the prime screenings are already gone, and the remaining demand will likely live or die on whatever further seating is released before July 17.
