The subsequent section of The Odyssey‘s advertising is about to kick off. Christopher Nolan’s subsequent movie will reportedly unveil its first full-length trailer alongside screenings of Avatar: Hearth & Ash when it releases subsequent Friday, December 19 – however some individuals will get a fair longer look a full week early. A particular, six-minute prologue to The Odyssey will play earlier than the IMAX 70mm re-releases of Sinners and One Battle After One other, which is able to return to theaters this Friday.
That is simply the most recent transfer in a marketing campaign that is leaned into exclusivity to generate hype. At a time when most trailers drop on-line and goal for max virality, The Odyssey‘s teaser trailer, launched with Jurassic World Rebirth in July, debuted solely in theaters. The footage has since leaked on-line, however Common has but to put up it formally. On July 17, a 12 months from the movie’s launch, tickets for a few of its premium format screenings went on sale. A number of screenings offered out.
The latter transfer struck many as extra harking back to concert events than cinema screenings, and the comparability wasn’t complimentary. For a lot of, it was antithetical to what the films ought to be, and the following section in moviegoing’s transition from an off-the-cuff pastime to a handful-of-times-per-year occasion. However in contrast to most films, The Odyssey is an occasion on that scale, and the best way it is being marketed is definitely what theaters want proper now.
The Odyssey Is Making Film Theaters Really feel Particular Once more
“Eventizing” is commonly positioned as what must occur to get individuals into theaters today, and wrapped up in that’s the necessity to make a movie really feel unmissable. Sure viewers will all the time gravitate towards the theatrical expertise, however if mainstream audiences do not feel like they have to see one thing on the massive display, there’s little incentivizing them to not wait for its digital or streaming launch. This was what the MCU at its top did finest, and why the remainder of Hollywood spent so lengthy chasing shared continuities.
However there are different methods to create that feeling. Nolan’s Oppenheimer actually emphasised the specificity of the IMAX format, and IMAX 70mm particularly, because the definitive technique to expertise the film, one thing that could not actually be replicated at dwelling. Audiences responded by in search of out these screenings in what nearly appeared like a motion. This 12 months, Ryan Coogler exploited the identical pattern with Sinners, and even managed to develop it; a video of him explaining the totally different projection codecs of his film intimately was hailed as a stroke of promotional genius.
The Odyssey is mining that vein once more, but additionally going far past it. Now it isn’t solely the film that must be skilled in theaters, however the trailers. There’s pleasure across the subsequent technology of IMAX cameras. Common goes out of its technique to be sure that individuals affiliate Nolan’s newest film with cinemas particularly, and nothing else.
It is true that Hollywood and the theater business must discover a technique to revive (or at the least stabilize) moviegoing as a extra common observe, however films like The Odyssey aren’t going to try this. Occasion movies like this must let themselves be an enormous deal. And this movie’s FOMO-heavy advertising technique is making theaters themselves really feel like an enormous deal, too. If audiences present up in July 2026 and are available away feeling like they’ve had a particular expertise on the films, The Odyssey may have executed its job.
- Launch Date
-
July 17, 2026
- Producers
-
Emma Thomas