The Odyssey is still in IMAX at 16 Malaysian cinemas in its eighth week, as Nolan's epic passes $1.55 billion

Seven weeks after it opened, two of every three sessions of The Odyssey in Malaysia are still in IMAX. This site's listings for the week to 10 September have Christopher Nolan's film at 33 cinemas with 382 sessions, at GSC and TGV, and 253 of those sessions are in IMAX halls at 16 cinemas. For a film that opened here on 16 July, that is the chains keeping it where it was made to be seen rather than letting it drift to the small halls.

Nolan's biggest, and IMAX's biggest

Screen Daily's global box office report of 30 August puts the film at $1.55 billion worldwide, $563.9 million of it in North America and $989.4 million international, with the United Kingdom and Ireland its biggest overseas market at $106.7 million, ahead of China at $88.3 million, France at $82.4 million and South Korea at $70.1 million. Box Office Mojo's title page has the total at $1,559,295,035, with a running time of 2 hours 52 minutes and Universal Pictures as distributor.

It passed Nolan's own records on the way. Screen Daily reported on 10 August that at $1.11 billion it had overtaken The Dark Knight Rises ($1.09 billion), The Dark Knight ($1.01 billion) and Oppenheimer ($976 million) to become his biggest film, and that its $289.3 million from IMAX screens, 26 per cent of the total, made it the highest-grossing film ever shown in the format. The New Straits Times, reporting in July when the total was $639.6 million after two weeks, noted that the film runs close to three hours and carries a mature classification, and put Universal's production cost at about $250 million. It stars Matt Damon as Odysseus, the king of Ithaca making his way home from the Trojan War.

Why the IMAX halls are the point

Screen Daily's report on 23 July explains the format's hold on the film: it is the first full-length theatrical release shot entirely with IMAX film cameras, and IMAX venues took $52 million of its $264 million global opening weekend, a fifth of the total and a record for the company in comparable markets. Rich Gelfond, IMAX's chief executive, called it "a transformational event" for the company. In Malaysia the chains have kept the film in those halls: this week's IMAX sessions are at GSC Southkey Mall, GSC's Aurum cinema at The Exchange TRX, GSC KL East Mall, GSC IOI City Mall 2 in Putrajaya, GSC IOI Mall Damansara and GSC Paradigm Mall in Johor Bahru, and at TGV Gurney Paragon, Suria KLCC, Pavilion Bukit Jalil, Sunway Pyramid, Tebrau City, Vivacity Kuching, 1 Utama, Central I-City, Sunway Velocity and Pavilion Damansara Heights.

That last one is the newest screen in the country. TGV's own event page for its Hero-Con weekend records that TGV Pavilion Damansara Heights opened on 28 July with ten halls and 1,310 seats, an IMAX with Laser hall with 12-channel sound, five Deluxe halls, a Beanie hall and three Indulge halls including a bed cinema, with direct MRT access from Pusat Bandar Damansara station. It has eight IMAX sessions of The Odyssey this week; the TGV Pavilion Damansara Heights page has directions and everything else on there.

Choosing a session

The film runs 173 minutes in the chains' listings and is rated 16. A 9pm IMAX start finishes close to midnight, and the IMAX sessions this week are mostly in the afternoon and evening, with the 2D and Deluxe sessions at the other 17 cinemas filling in the rest of the day. The Odyssey page lists every cinema still carrying it with each session's format marked, and the showtimes page puts the times side by side. Eight weeks in, the chains reallocate on Thursdays, so the IMAX halls it holds this week are the ones to book while they last.