Christopher Nolan just fulfilled a lifelong dream, after daring IMAX to do something groundbreaking

FastCompany: The six-minute prologue to The Odyssey is a physical experience, especially when seen from director Christopher Nolan’s preferred spot. That’s the middle row of AMC’s IMAX theater at Universal CityWalk in Hollywood, where Nolan has been reviewing footage in early April as he finishes postproduction. With the 58-by-79-foot screen fully enveloping a viewer’s peripheral vision, waves crash and arrows thud with spine-rattling force.

The Odyssey , which Universal Pictures is releasing in theaters July 17, is the first feature film in which every scene is entirely shot with IMAX cameras—from Matt Damon’s Odysseus huddling inside the iconic Trojan horse to the iron-helmeted Greeks ambushing their foes. Nolan captured many of the moments using a new camera named “the Keighley,” which was designed to handle eye-widening spectacle and intimate dialogue with equal vividness. “We were able to get a lot of extremely intense, emotional scenes with this imaging capability, [which] we’ve never been able to do before,” says Nolan.

The quietest and most versatile camera IMAX has ever created, the Keighley (named after IMAX “chief quality guru” Patricia Keighley and her husband, David, IMAX’s longtime chief quality officer, who died last year ) is designed to send Hollywood a message: This format isn’t just for stunts and docs anymore. IMAX is betting that the Keighley will unlock the appeal, and profits, of large-format film for a new generation of directors. It also may sweeten the deal for a potential suitor: IMAX is reportedly exploring a sale . The ‘Filmed for IMAX’ advantage 2025 was IMAX’s biggest year ever .

Box-office revenue has generally lagged since the pandemic, but IMAX screenings generated a record $1.28 billion in ticket sales due to a varied output ( Weapons , F1: The Movie , Zootopia 2 ), international films released locally (China’s Ne Zha 2 ), and zeitgeist-seizing fare like Sinners , which used IMAX cameras to capture its immersive time-span-crossing musical number. This year may be even bigger, with Project Hail Mary , Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil , and Dune: Part Three . Tickets for IMAX screenings of Dune: Part Three were being resold on eBay for $4,500 apiece in April—eight months before its December 18 release.

IMAX takes home 11% of the box-office haul from movies released or remastered in the IMAX format. (That amounted to $142 million in 2025, or more than a third of IMAX’s total revenue for that year; the other $268 million came mainly from sales, rentals, and maintenance on IMAX projection systems.) But IMAX sees movies filmed, not just screened, with its technology as an increasingly important part of its business model.

To earn the “Filmed for IMAX” certification—which studios can display in their marketing materials for movies like Supergirl and Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu —a film must be shot with IMAX-certified digital cameras (made by third parties like Arri and Sony) or IMAX’s own proprietary 65 mm film cameras. The latter have remained a rarefied tool, with directors from Michael Bay to Jordan Peele jockeying to deploy them for only their most eye-popping scenes. The Keighley, though, represents a new and far more ambitious voyage for IMAX—one that has evolved from its nearly two-decade-long partnership with Nolan.

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The article discusses a significant advancement in film technology that could influence brand strategies in the film industry, but its direct impact on broader brand/design practices is limited.