Adam Ye, 28, is preparing to traverse international waters on his own odyssey — journeying from Japan to London to watch filmmaker Christopher Nolan’s new epic in Imax.
Last year, Ye, who was raised in the UK but lives and works in Tokyo, learned that “Odyssey” tickets were on sale for this summer at one of his favorite home cinemas, the British Film Institute. His heart began pumping as he dropped his lunch to “lock in” to the ticketing site. To his delight, the website wasn’t buffering too much.
“I quickly snatched the Nolan-approved seats right in the middle, on opening day!” said Ye. He changed his travel plans to coincide with the “Odyssey” showing, and said he’s spent around £1,300 on the whole expedition.
“The Odyssey” has become a siren call for movie lovers. Eager fans are crossing oceans, filling up 1 a.m. screenings, and buying resale tickets for hundreds of dollars. Pre-sales at Midwestern cinema chain Studio C are at 132% of the same time period’s pre-sales for Nolan’s previous blockbuster “Oppenheimer,” according to controller Matthew Hoopfer. One Studio C location has a 7 a.m. screening with coffee and breakfast sandwiches for the nearly three-hour film.
The buzzy cast, long-beloved story, and Nolan’s track record combine for a perfect cinematic storm. It’s also the first film shot entirely in Imax, meaning film nerds will pay up for premium Imax and 70 millimeter screenings.
“For the general on sale for Imax 70 millimeter tickets, I made sure to have three devices ready to go — a laptop, my work phone, and my personal cellphone,” said Caleb Hilton, a 34-year-old movie lover in Washington, DC. He spent around two hours trying to secure tickets, eventually getting two sets.
As with hot concert or sports seats, scalpers are profiting from the resale market. The average price of “Odyssey” tickets sold on eBay through July 10 was $165, according to a Business Insider analysis, with an opening night ticket in Los Angeles selling for $600. One user who sold a pair of seats at New York’s Lincoln Square Imax for $425 sent me a graphic showing the screen’s size — it’s one of the biggest in the country — and wrote: “That’s why they sell for so much.”
A subreddit for Imax fans has banned reselling in order to fend off scammers and price gougers. While that prevents normal, well-intentioned Imax lovers from swapping tickets, it’s a trade-off moderators have had to make.
“We’ve really had people try, and we’ve had abuse thrown at us in the mod mail,” said one of the forum’s moderators, Joe Griffiths. “All it takes is for one person to be scammed or led down a dark alley behind the back of the Lincoln Theater in New York. And we just don’t want that to happen on our watch.”
Dynamic pricing, where prices rise or fall with demand, is common in concert and sports ticketing. But it’s largely nonexistent in cinema, though some theaters have flirted with it. Despite the rabid demand, some movie theater owners think jacking up prices will damage their relationships with audiences. The best theaters develop a track record of trust, said Penn Ketchum, the managing partner and film buyer at Penn Cinema. “And one of the things that I do to earn that trust is keep my pricing consistent and predictable.”
At Milwaukee Film, whose Oriental Theater seats over a thousand people and can project 70-millimeter film, the movie will have the theater’s usual premium pricing — tickets will be $18.34, compared to $14 for regular showings.
“We’re really aware of how expensive a night out at the movies can get for people,” said Susan Kerns, Milwaukee Film’s executive director.
Even so, “Odyssey” fanatics are shelling out for multiple viewings, seeking out the best experiences they can find. While he’s not traveling by sailboat or raft, Christopher Vanderpool, a 24-year-old in New England, is preparing to cross the country on his own epic journey — watching four different screenings in the first two weeks of the film’s release.
Vanderpool is flying to the Bay Area to see the movie with friends opening weekend, and has subsequent Imax and 70 millimeter viewings lined up back home. He may attend a few other screenings in hopes of snagging a coveted film strip giveaway. He got lucky securing primary sale tickets, and estimates he’s spent around $120 for his various viewings.
“As people have rediscovered what the possibilities of cinema are, especially event cinema, I think it’s compelling for folks to find a way to get out with their friends — or themselves — and engage in this,” Vanderpool said. “It’s a really, really rare format, even now.”
