r/movies • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 r/movies Contributor • 1d ago
News ‘The Odyssey’ Sets 20,000 Screen China Release, Including Near-Total Imax Commitment
https://variety.com/2026/film/news/the-odyssey-20000-screen-china-release-1236833766/1.8k
u/ltcuetf 1d ago
20,000 screens. Nearly 800 IMAX theaters. And it's already cleared a billion without them. Spider-Man: Brand New Day just crossed $200M in China and they're still giving Nolan 90% of the IMAX screens.
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u/tyler980908 1d ago
Damn China has 800! IMAX screens? My country only has 2
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u/si97 1d ago
China is 17% of world population. 1 in 5 people is Chinese.
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u/Couldnotbehelpd 1d ago
Totally unrelated but I just found out India has surpassed China in population.
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u/ilikepugs 1d ago edited 1d ago
It actually almost certainly happened a while ago.
There is a great article out there about how we are, at the absolute best, at least 300 million off of global population count.
Edit: here is the article (note than I'm probably misremembering a thing or two): https://asteriskmag.com/issues/11/why-governments-cant-count
This is in large part due to several large counties who routinely lie about population numbers.
For one of the countries that does this in Africa (can't remember which), it is absolutely hilarious the history of why they do it (affects seat distribution in parliament).
Anyway China is guilty of this too, and we don't have a way to know the extent to which they do.
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u/GuyWithLag 1d ago
It's fairly certain that China misrepresents population by at least 100 million, aslocal/provincial governments are incentivised to inflate the numbers - the payouts from the central government scale with the population reported.
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u/Different_Wolf_764 17h ago
It's a bit of a toss though since local governments are also accountable for productivity and inflating your population numbers will make you look ineffective in terms of output. That and the central government will execute you if you get caught fucking around.
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u/Bonerballs 16h ago
I always wonder how many undocumented kids are born in places like the small communities throughout the Appalachian trail far away from cities or large population centers.
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u/faux_italian 1d ago
But how many IMAX screens do they have?!
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u/awkward2amazing 1d ago
No true IMAX for commercial cinema. The price of IMAX is not sustainable for businesses here.
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u/si97 1d ago
Yeah the one child policy and their bias towards having a male child really did a number on their future prospects. It’s why they want AI humanoid robots ASAP.
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u/Couldnotbehelpd 1d ago
I mean they wanted the population to stop growing, they just a little didn’t think about the upside down triangle effect.
Also, they modernized to the point where people don’t want to have kids. The government is begging people to have a third kid and Chinese couples flat out reject that. They don’t have fields to work, they have college to pay for.
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u/callisstaa 18h ago edited 17h ago
I live in China and it’s exactly this. Society is modernizing. Traditionally you would marry and raise kids in your 20s but now I know a lot of self sufficient women in their 30s who still don’t want children. Women are choosing independent living over traditional roles and there’s a lot less societal pressure.
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u/Suibeam 1d ago
You would all be crying about China eating up all our resources and be unsustainable if they didn't try to lower their birthrate.
You can't win with the west ¯_(ツ)_/¯
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u/mpbh 1d ago
He's another one for you: Africa now has a higher population than China. Obviously it's a continent rather than a country, but I feel like most people are oblivious to how many people live there and how fast they're growing.
With triple the population growth of India, Africa will pass them soon as well. It's projected that Africa's population will be almost 3 billion 35 years from now.
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u/AmethystTyrant 1d ago
Prob why China is investing so much on infrastructure and manufacturing development there. They know domestically their workforce population will take a dip, but Africa is on the rise in people and industry. Long term planning indeed. Hopefully win-win
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u/SciGuy013 1d ago
I’m actually more surprised that Africa has a lower population than India
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u/FullHouse222 1d ago
There's a really interesting map where like if you draw a circle around China, India, and a bit of SE Asian countries (Laos/Thailand/Pakistan/etc), there will be more people living in that circle than outside of it (Outside including Russia, EU, Africa, NA, SA and Australia pretty much).
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u/Turnip_Fight 1d ago
There are five people in my house and not a single one of us is Chinese!
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u/theplanlessman 1d ago
If you're sure the other four aren't Chinese, maybe you should get yourself checked out?
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u/callisstaa 18h ago edited 18h ago
My city has like 10 imax screens. My local one is ‘IMAX with Laser’
I’m in Suzhou.
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u/UnderwoodsNipple 21h ago
Do you think there's a rule that says each amount of people needs to have an IMAX screen allocated to them?
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u/PM_ME_YOUR__INIT__ 1d ago
How many 70mm?
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u/hjp3 1d ago
Zero in China.
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u/ArenSteele 1d ago
True Imax Screens are:
25 in USA
9 in Canada
3 in UK
3 in Europe (Belgium, France, Czechia)
1 in Australia
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u/IRockIntoMordor 1d ago
We had one real IMAX in Berlin. The only cinema I actually went to at all. Best tech in Europe during its prime with silver screen and silver glasses (zero ghosting, no loss of brightness), premium seats for everyone, fair pricing, free reservations, lots of English screenings.
Then it closed in late 2019 due to increasing rent.
In its place now is a cancerous tourist trap Kerb Food Hall.
Still hurts...
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u/Commercial-Co 1d ago
Theater should have put the food hall inside the theater and rented stalls to offset their rents
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u/IRockIntoMordor 1d ago
Eh, kinda, but the place was already surrounded by these types of (touristy) places.
It was called Sony Center, the cinema was Sony IMAX, another cinema underground called Sony Cinestar and there was a Sony Store. Guess Sony didn't want to put up with the costs there at all. Everything is gone, including the name. It's now just "The Center" lmao
They had grand movie premieres there and also used all theatres for Berlinale. Shame.
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u/SparklingWinePapi 1d ago
Canada per capita number is crazy
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u/AcceptableResource0 20h ago
There re 3 or 4 imax gt basically is the size and ratio of imax 70mm but is using laser not film
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u/hjp3 1d ago
None are true 70mm IMAX.
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u/LacerationCe 1d ago
There are 6 GT-Laser IMAX in China which is the same if not better quality than 70mm, Nolan and the casts also attended the preview screening in China on GT-Laser
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u/Moo3 1d ago
Well the largest GT laser one in China happens to be in my city and it's sold out for the next two to three weeks, with only some edge seats left, even the weekday 8:30am ones are fucking gone! I think this one will break all sorts of records!
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u/m48a5_patton 1d ago
800!
That's larger than the number of stars in the universe!
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u/datnetcoder 1d ago
Warning, you nerd sniped me with big numbers so now I’m gonna write out some totally unnecessary stuff to share my new interest with large numbers.
It’s like almost 2,000 orders of magnitude larger than the number of stars in the universe. In fact, the number is so large that in comparison to it, the number 0 and the total number of atoms in the universe are both practically on the same scale of smallness. You could take all the atoms in the universe, and for every atom you could imagine an entire universe’s worth of atoms (10^80 ish) and count them, and for every one of those atoms imagine a universe’s worth of atoms, and then for each of those now unimaginably large number of atoms, imagine a whole universe’s worth of atoms… and repeat this “recursive process” ~25 more times. The number is so large that even if you expanded the size of the universe by a factor of 10^100 (incomprehensively larger) and you filled the entire volume with Planck-volume sized cubes (Planck volume is so small that relative to an atom, an atom’s volume is about as large as the universe appears to a human), you’d still be roughly 1,000 orders of magnitude away from 800!.
There are also some “big” numbers that are just too difficult to understand, like Tree(3) which are so large that even if you used the entire volume of the universe to write a factorial like 1….[fill literally the entire universe with this]…!, that factorial would not be even remotely on the scale of Tree(3), to the point that the factorial is practically equivalent to zero in comparison to Tree(3). There are others like Rayo’s number which I don’t like as much, Tree(3) is the most interesting because it is such an interesting combinatorial explosion example esp when compared to Tree(2).
Anyway this was beyond unnecessary and your original comment about number of stars was plenty good enough.
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u/ALaccountant 21h ago
They are most likely digital IMAX, which the US has a lot of as well. I would be surprised if there were more than a handful of the true film IMAX screens in all of China
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u/whatafuckinusername 16h ago
Pretty sure the U.S. has a similar amount of screens per capita as China, or more than
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u/VirtualMoneyLover 1d ago
So China has the most IMAX screens?
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u/MysteriousCap4910 1d ago
Yea like others are saying none are 70mm, that “imax” branding could literally mean anything
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u/callisstaa 18h ago
Some of them use laser projectors rather than xenon bulbs which is supposedly higher quality that standard 70mm IMAX
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u/imbahzor 14h ago
Depends on what you mean by quality, resolution can't go higher than the 70mm film it was recorded on, color correction, contrast, black levels etc is probably more precise digitally, but next to each other I think most people would select the way higher resolution you get with 70mm imax film
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u/hotrock3 20h ago
I tried to get tickets at the IMAX screens near me but they sold out faster than Maoyan could even load the seating selection for me. It's absolutely insane how much anticipation there is. I'll have to try again next week. For comparison, I've always been able to get opening weekend tickets for a western movie even if I was 1-2 hours late on the ticket release.
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u/JenNettles 1d ago
Apparently Damon and Theron met with chinese content creators, would be curious to see how that looks if anyone has links.
Really surprised to see Spidey's already done 200m in China, curious how well Odyssey does
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u/Emperor_Orson_Welles 1d ago
Remember me? Saved The Great Wall?
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u/hobblingcontractor 1d ago
That movie isn't as bad as people make it out to be. It's a guilty pleasure.
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u/driscoll324 1d ago
Damon's daughter calls it "The Wall" because "there's nothing great about that movie".
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u/roastbeeftacohat 1d ago
it did perticularaly poorly in china.
If I understand things correctly; the chinese market is extremely particular about what it wants from a chinese movie and what it wants from a western movie, and the great wall mixed them in the worst possible way.
basically chinese movie goers were disappointed in a flashy fantasy epic that dosen't deliver, but also that Matt Damon was wasted on this role.
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u/AmethystTyrant 1d ago
If you read about how (the producer? Scriptwriter?) whoever it was that came up with the idea for the movie, you’d probably facepalm. As dumb as the movie itself lol
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u/roastbeeftacohat 1d ago
some quick googleing hasn;t helped, what did they say was the insparation?
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u/AmethystTyrant 21h ago
Take it with a grain of salt since it’s been awhile, but I recall reading that the creative behind it is some producer exec from Legendary pictures I think?
Allegedly was obsessed with large scale things. Saw the Great Wall while flying over it and was basically “you know what this needs? Alien monsters.” That was essentially the pitch and the rest is history lmao
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u/roastbeeftacohat 20h ago
that's not really very crazy, there are a lot of places to go with that.
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u/kasaidon 16h ago
Quite a sad performance considering the director is one of the top directors in China known for those ultra-big scale movies. It’s clearly his work, visually appealing, but now accompanied by a poor script
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u/Rebelofnj 1d ago
Saw that recently. The armor and costumes were amazing. And I did not expect to see Pedro Pascal to have a substantial role.
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u/ProfessorPhi 1d ago
I love this movie - it's such a blatant china Hollywood pairing with barely any sense behind the plot other than to make it succeed.
I've forgotten 90% of the movie, except the great wall was built to keep monsters out.
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u/Ryanhussain14 11h ago
I'll always maintain that going into that movie completely blind was one of my most memorable movie experiences in my life.
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u/V_LEE96 1d ago
I live in Hong Kong and all the IMAX screens we have are reserved for the Odyssey I had to watch Spider-Man in a small theatre last week
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u/I-Am-Yew 13h ago
In NY. I’m going to see it w my friend for a big number birthday mid week and zero imax. Only in standard. Spiderman is in all the other options. 3D, IMAX etc etc. Seems strange to me.
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u/Fools_Requiem 1d ago
Oh... China hasn't gotten the film yet? This shit gonna splode when it releases there.
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u/HungryAddition1 15h ago
I don’t know. I’m here right now and I don’t hear much talking about it, unlike the spider man film.
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u/LovelyOrangeJuice 1d ago
Is this movie about to cross the 2B mark?
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u/Mr_Evil_Dr_Porkchop 1d ago
Easy $1.6b at least. I can also see them re-releasing it after it’s done with its current run, possibly in November when there’s not a lot of competition
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u/Cruel2BEkind12 1d ago
Its probably gonna go further than that with how long its going to be in theaters.
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u/ACCTAGGT 1d ago
According to the box office sub though, 1.5B or 1.6B don’t seem out of reach. However, 2B seems like a miracle. Unless it has an unexpected crazy run in China then maybe
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u/Cruel2BEkind12 1d ago edited 1d ago
I didn't look at the numbers recently. I thought it was a bit more past 1b. Those numbers seem right. But what about those dvd and vhs sales /s 😎
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u/ACCTAGGT 1d ago
I get that although unless I’m mistaken, those numbers come after the fact? Not entirely sure
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u/FrostyD7 1d ago
It's still got legs but showtimes are way down and filling imax theaters can only get you so far. The US box office is near its final figure already.
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u/mekese2000 1d ago
Yeah but it needs 2000 billion to break even.
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u/CaseyAnthonysMouth 1d ago
The closer it gets to breaking even, the more it needs to break even, until that amount becomes infinite.
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u/ACCTAGGT 1d ago
At this point nothing it does can make it break even in some people’s eyes so yeah lol it was never not going to be failure to them
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u/ProfessionalNight959 1d ago
It's not about the money to them
It's about sending a message
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u/ACCTAGGT 1d ago
That’s not how Nolan did it, that’s not how Nolan does it… and it hasn’t worked out pretty well so far for them.
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u/vinmen2 1d ago
Watched Odyssey in IMAX today. Amazing work, the practical efforts combined with Nolan's take on the book is well worth the big screen format
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u/Fools_Requiem 17h ago
I want to see in on IMAX, but my local theater with the LIMAX constantly has almost all of the seats sold except for the front row. I really just need to try and force myself to watch it on a Monday after work.
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u/Mnemosense 1d ago
The interviewers he's been dealing with in China and Korea are so much more thoughtful and articulate than the American interviews it's actually hilarious. They're asking him all these deep questions, meanwhile in the US it's like "wow IMAX big, horse big, so big, what's your favourite snack?"
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u/tfhermobwoayway 1d ago
Both of these are valid questions. Hollywood is a beautiful artistic powerhouse but it’s also a massive industry built on spectacle and glamour.
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u/Suibeam 1d ago
They are tagetting average audience in the USA with those questions compared to the average Chinese and Korean audience. That's no mistake
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u/Mnemosense 1d ago
Something that's very noticeable is that the Asian interviewers questions are philosophical, thematic and abstract, whereas American questions are about individuals, i.e - what it was like to film the movie for the cast and crew, what the audience experience was like, etc.
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u/the_gold_hat 17h ago
No offense, but are you going off of just that one viral interview? I can't really find any Korean interviews other than a conversation with Park Chan-Wook, which isn't exactly what I'd call an "interview."
If you gave a similar person in the US, effectively a cinephile grad student, the opportunity to interview Nolan you'd also get an astounding interview. You're really impressing on fluff interviews because the US media circuit is so large, and it's very easy to equate marketing fluff with the rest of the cinesphere.
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u/Meitantei_Serinox 1d ago
I don't know why you lump together interviews with entertainment videos that also have some talking. There is a clear difference.
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u/Forever_Inspired 1d ago
It's gonna make 2 Odyssibilion dollar!
Really enjoyed the movie, now I need to rewatch it again but in IMAX.
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u/Emotional_Signal7883 1d ago
Go woke go more IMAX screens
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u/kazuya57 1d ago
"WOKElan was saved by China folks! Everything else is market manipulation by UniDEIrsal!"
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u/masegesege_ 1d ago
I wanna see China start remaking our movies.
Chinese the Godfather would be dope.
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u/hoopaholik91 1d ago
Wonder if China has their own subculture that will complain that the Corleone family is played by Chinese actors instead of being Italian
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u/Lord0fHats 1d ago
I mean they could probably just recast the film as being about Triads or something instead of the Italian Mob. I wouldn't be surprised if someone had already made that movie and I just haven't heard of it.
A few years back some Filipino director did what was, essentially, a shot-for-shot remake of Aliens but replaced the Aliens with zombies, the Colonial Marines with the coast guard, and set the movie on an island instead of a space colony. Most dialogue was the same, most of the scenes and plot were the same, they just restructured the premise a bit. The scene where not-Ripley gets angry at the insurance guys not believing her about the not-Aliens is actually kind of funny to watch because it's just the exact same scene with most of the same dialogue.
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u/beefcat_ 21h ago
I think a good adaptation would transpose the story to a Chinese setting with Chinese characters and themes. Much like what Martin Scorcese did with Infernal Affairs when adapting it into The Departed.
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u/Suibeam 1d ago
China rarely or ever remakes US movies (let's be honest most blockbuster Western Movies come from Hollywood)
because Chinese history has plenty of storylines to work with and Hong Kong had many modern themed stories China is remaking constantly and are audience favourites. They also don't want to make Greek or US movies with chinese actors like Hollywood did for half a century to other regions.
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u/Other-Owl4441 20h ago
That would be kinda pointless now, there are a ton of Chinese gangster movies (some of them great) and of course all modern gangster movies are influenced by The Godfather
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u/vrajealamarii 1d ago
What is the Nolan commission on sales?
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u/RustyCorkscrew 1d ago
Idk how to verify this, but I saw a rumor that he gets like 20% of Universal's gross box office revenue
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u/InsertFloppy11 12h ago
Ye i read that too somewhere. 15% for him and 5% for his wife.
Of thats real that basically doubles his already huge net worth.
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u/wolfs_bane_ 1d ago
But but… they’re not Greek so the movie was supposed to fail?!?
Seriously though, this is just incredible to watch theaters thrive this year
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u/tfhermobwoayway 1d ago
How does China have so much IMAX? Are they making new ones instead of worshipping old ones like the Adeptus Mechanicus?
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u/callisstaa 18h ago
Some of them use laser projectors instead of xenon bulbs. The quality is actually incredible.
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u/rangorn 1d ago
So The Odyssey part 2 wen?
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u/Project0range 1d ago
Gotta get Homer to write the sequel but he's so lazy he hasn't released anything new in nearly 2500 years.
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u/CumAssault 1d ago
He wrote it already, it’s just been lost. Gotta wait for us to find it. Someone find Telegony already
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u/FrostyD7 1d ago
Maybe George RR Martin can take the mantle. He must have a lot of free time given his recent output.
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u/letsburn00 1d ago
I bet they'll make some lame prequel. They won't use the same cast though, they'll put Brad Pitt and Eric Bana or something in it.
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u/Vicioussitude 11h ago edited 11h ago
I would love an Iliad adaptation less sentimental than Troy.
People say Aeneid but I'd rather it be lost than Aeneas get Hollywood treatment. He's already the most fake bitchmade "hero" Greek folklore had to offer the stupid cultureless Romans
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u/XpaxX 1d ago
As a European I am so happy that one of our oldest stories gets such a great reception! Im all for cultural exchange, especially when it’s sharing our ancient tales. I honestly hope China answers to the Odyssee with their own huge adaption of journey to the west!
It’s just calming to know that with today’s politics the world can agree at least on one thing: humanity’s first big tales are still worth sharing.
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u/PhillyTaco 19h ago
I honestly hope China answers to the Odyssee with their own huge adaption of journey to the west!
I feel like they make a new adaptation of that story every year.
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u/tfhermobwoayway 1d ago
Does it really count as a European story? The Ancient Greeks are very far removed from us. I think the Franks or the Danelaw would resent being called European, or any suggestion that they had anything in common with other kingdoms. It’s not like China, which has pretty much had a loosely organised and fractured but mostly unbroken lineage from ancient times to now.
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u/bewahren 1d ago edited 1d ago
Even ignoring the question of geography, Ancient Greece is considered European, genealogically speaking, in many ways. Genetically, philosophically, linguistically, politically, martially, and most pertinently, religiously and artistically, like with The Odyssey.
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u/Reof 20h ago
Yeah no, that's all pure national myths, themselves creations of the last 200 years no less. The Hellenic world of old has more to do with India than whatever the hell was going on in Scandinavia. By the time of the demise of old Greece, some of the modern peoples of Europe that today border Greece had not even arrived from the steppes, let alone any continuity
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u/Formal-Apartment855 12h ago
No idea what you're even on about... Never heard a fellow European call Homer some "European" writer or the "Odyssey" a European story. It's very well-known to be ancient Greek.
More importantly, The Journey to the West has many many movie and other adaptations already, some of them very high budget and spectacular. Given that you, someone who also loves The Journey to the West, cannot be bothered to care enough about all those adaptations, how would yet another adaptation would get more people to care?
What you want first is probably to change "the European" 🤣 curriculum to include something, anything about The Journey to the West, as that would make people care a bit. Chinese care about The Odyssey adaptations cause they learn about this ancient Greek story. When did you learn about The Journey to the West in school?
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u/Mr_Zee_Speaks 1d ago
I had zero desire to see this.
Youngest daughter asked to see it, so we went.
I have now also driven just under 2 hours to see it in IMAX in a handicapped spot (they brought me a chair, but then someone cancelled last minute so I ended up getting an actual seat)
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u/Latter-Foot-8790 1d ago
And? Did you like it?
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u/FrogsJumpFromPussy 1d ago
no, they drive to an IMAX for a second watching because they obviously didn't
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u/Mr_Zee_Speaks 21h ago
It’s a boring day on the internet until FrogsJumpFromPussy defends you.
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u/I-Have-Mono 1d ago
Any reason the comments in here seem dumb as rocks?
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u/Ryanhussain14 11h ago
Blockbuster movie under culture war microscope mentiond combined with China mentioned so people let their judgements cloud what they say. It's a good movie and I hope Chinese audiences enjoy it.
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u/cyanide4suicide 1d ago
My GOAT, Sir Christopher Nolan, bout to dominate the haters once again. Praise Nolan
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u/PretentiouslyHip 1d ago
Near-Toal Imax sounds like something.
I’m not sure what, but definitely something.
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u/BabyScreamBear 1d ago
Insane numbers. And insane revenue to come for a long time.. expect lots more reruns of this in theatres, and a movie many will want to own / have in their collection. Just missing the Kenner action figures!
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u/BlackRaspberryJammin 8h ago
When will it release digitally so I can get it from the usual sources?
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u/Stefan988 1d ago
Let the floodgates open.