Christopher Nolan set off a new race in large-format moviemaking in May 2025 when he revealed that The Odyssey would be the first feature shot entirely with Imax 70mm cameras. The film’s success since then has only sharpened the question of who, if anyone, will try to follow him.
Denis Villeneuve is now one of the names being watched most closely. He said much of Dune: Part Three was shot on Imax film, called that his first time using it, and said he hoped to have the chance to do it again. That matters because the format is not just a prestige choice; it is drawing audiences in real time. The Odyssey has grossed nearly $650 million globally, earned $140 million in Imax and had Imax 70mm screenings sold out for weeks, a level of demand that is pushing more attention toward the format at Amc Lincoln Square and elsewhere.
The numbers behind that interest are hard to ignore. The Odyssey cost $250 million to produce, used two million feet of film and carried roughly $3 million in raw film stock costs alone, based on about $1.50 per foot. One print costs $50,000, which is one reason fully Imax-shot productions stay rare even as the audience appetite grows. The draw is also helping other filmmakers test the edges of the format: Ryan Coogler shot sequences of Sinners using 15-perf Imax film and Ultra Panavision 70, and Marvel Studio said during its Comic Con panel that Black Panther 3 will partially be shot on 70mm film, the first Marvel movie to be made that way.
That enthusiasm runs into a practical limit. Imax cameras are loud, cumbersome and expensive to use, and Villeneuve said he kept the desert in digital because he likes the brutality of digital Imax even as he praised the result on screen. The company said it has enough cameras and enough blimps that a fully Imax-shot film could happen if filmmakers wanted to take on the challenge, but it also made clear it cannot speak to whether any of them actually want to do it.
That leaves the next move unresolved but narrower than it was a few months ago. Villeneuve has already signaled interest, Coogler has shown he is willing to work across large-format systems, and the commercial run of The Odyssey is giving studios and filmmakers a reason to take the idea more seriously. The question now is not whether a fully Imax-shot feature can be made; it is which filmmaker will accept the cost, the noise and the size of the gamble.
