Fans are dedicating hours of their time and thousands of their dollars to this movie. We asked them why

On June 15, 2025, Peter and Nitesh were patiently waiting to buy tickets for an event a year in advance. It’s a common practice for concerts and limited-run musicals, but what Peter and Nitesh were hoping to secure were tickets to the movie theatre.

The IMAX theatre in Melbourne is the only theatre in the Southern Hemisphere (one of only 41 in the world) that can screen Christopher Nolan’s latest epic, The Odyssey, in its intended 70mm IMAX format, and Peter and Nitesh weren’t going to run the risk of missing out.

With the movie coming out on Thursday, July 16, Peter initially missed out on tickets for release day, securing seats for sessions on both Friday and Saturday.

But, determined to see the film on opening day, he eventually managed to secure tickets to a screening at 2:30 pm on Thursday. And then, when it was announced that Melbourne would host a midnight premiere, he locked in tickets for that too.

With tickets to four screenings over the film’s first three days, Peter estimates he spent around $400 to $500, explaining that he got caught up in the excitement.

“I love film and cinema. I’m obsessed with it. I love storytelling, and film is my favourite form of storytelling,” he tells nine.com.au.

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“There are not a lot of big studio movies that focus on Greek mythology and stories like that, stories that I grew up with. And so, for someone like Christopher Nolan – everything he’s done has been nothing short of awesome – to see him tackle this story, just amplifies it.”

While Peter is a Melbourne local, Nitesh’s trip to the cinema isn’t quite as convenient, travelling around 13 hours all the way from Colombo, Sri Lanka, to watch the film in its original form.

He tells nine.com.au that he waited around an hour in a queue to secure his first tickets, now having screenings to four sessions in Melbourne, and is planning to see it probably another six to eight times after he returns home.

While Colombo has an IMAX theatre, Nitesh explains that it’s not nearly the size of Melbourne’s, which boasts the second-largest screen in the world.

Since The Odyssey is the first film ever shot entirely on IMAX – a feat that has been technically impossible up to now – it was a no-brainer for Nitesh and his wife to make the trip.

He estimates that all up, flights to Melbourne with a stopover in Singapore, accommodation and tickets included, he’s spent around $10,000, an experience he says is entirely worth the cost.

“For me, this is the stuff of dreams. It’s what I live for. I’m that guy. I’m that pop culture movie nut. I love travelling. I love making a big deal out of it,” he says.

“I’ll look back on these days when I’m with my pants up high in a rocking chair when I’m old, these will be the days of my life.”

It’s not the first time Nitesh has made the journey to Melbourne to catch a film; first making the trip nearly two decades ago for Nolan’s 2008 hit The Dark Knight, the first Hollywood feature film to ever shoot partially on IMAX 70mm.

“I’ve always been a Nolan fan, and I’ve always been following his movies. But when there was all this talk about IMAX and shooting in IMAX for The Dark Knight, I just thought I needed to see what the fuss was about,” he explains.

“Of course, I was blown away, and the rest is history. I just kept coming after.”

He’s made the trip for nearly every Christopher Nolan movie since, as well as other films shot natively in IMAX, including Avatar and Top Gun: Maverick.

While The Odyssey suffered some backlash a few months ahead of its release, neither Peter nor Nitesh were concerned about the negative commentary online.

“Nolan’s a professional. I always think if I don’t like a Nolan film, it’s not him, it’s me. He’s better at what he does; he knows what he’s doing, so I’m missing something,” Nitesh explains.

“It’s about as stupid as when people see someone playing sports, and they go, ‘Oh, he should have done this, he should have done that’. Could they have done it better?”

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He admits that when he first watched Interstellar, he “hated” it, but after “around the fifth sitting, it blew me away”, and it’s now his favourite of all of Nolan’s films.

Peter shared a similar sentiment. He said he completely trusts Nolan as a director and wanted to honour the film he created by seeing it in the original 70mm IMAX form, rather than the converted digital version that the majority of audiences around the world will be viewing.

“It’s the first film ever shot entirely with IMAX, which Chris Nolan says has been a dream of his since he was 16 ... and for this movie to be it, it seems like such a privilege,” he says.

“We know Chris Nolan’s intentions with this film, and I want to abide by those intentions, so if his intentions are he shot it with this, then for audiences to experience it in this, that’s the best way to go do it.”

Alongside the backlash toward some of Nolan’s choices, the internet has also chosen to take aim at fans like Peter and Nitesh, choosing to spend their time and money on experiencing this film.

There have been criticisms surrounding “superfans,” and why they would choose to spend so much money or see a film so many times, and to that, Peter simply says to let people live.

“A lot of people won’t share those same passions that you do, but a lot of people do. You talk to someone who’s not a cinephile per se or someone who regularly goes to the cinema, they’re not going to get it. They won’t. And that’s okay, and that’s fine,” he says.

“As long as you understand that you don’t need to argue back with them and try to prove them wrong. Let them have their own opinion. But don’t let it stop you from doing what you want to do. I’m super excited for the movie. Again, I think it is revolutionary.”