{"id":307176,"date":"2026-07-28T00:00:31","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T00:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/307176\/"},"modified":"2026-07-28T00:00:31","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T00:00:31","slug":"cinephiles-trek-to-nycs-amc-lincoln-square-to-see-odyssey-in-imax-70-mm-at-2-a-m","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/307176\/","title":{"rendered":"Cinephiles Trek to NYC\u2019s AMC Lincoln Square to See \u2018Odyssey\u2019 in IMAX 70-mm. at 2 a.m."},"content":{"rendered":"

An odyssey is a journey of homecoming, but the trek to the AMC Lincoln Square on the Upper West Side of Manhattan to watch this summer\u2019s blockbuster in the wee hours of a Sunday morning was closer to a pilgrimage. Filmgoers were driven by a need to see the adaptation of Homer\u2019s epic, \u201cThe Odyssey,\u201d as its director, Christopher Nolan, had intended: in IMAX 70-millimeter film, a format optimized for both detail and scale. AMC Lincoln Square\u2019s fourth-floor theater has the largest IMAX screen in the United States and accommodated the surging demand<\/a> by offering screenings at 2 a.m. and 6 a.m.<\/p>\n

There are plenty of tickets available to see \u201cThe Odyssey\u201d in standard format across the city \u2014 the film hauled in $124.5 million at the box office<\/a> in its first weekend. But the IMAX 70-millimeter screenings are all but sold out, which is why around 450 New Yorkers dragged themselves to the theater when they might otherwise be calling it a night.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s definitely an event,\u201d said Ellis Tan, a photographer and videographer who had traveled from Westchester County. <\/p>\n

Dash Suarez, a student at the Manhattan Center for Science and Mathematics, felt it was worth it. \u201cI don\u2019t think there\u2019s a compromise in any section of his storytelling,\u201d said Suarez, who attended the 2 a.m. screening with five pajama-clad friends. Two of them had read \u201cThe Odyssey.\u201d<\/p>\n

Amanda Quinonez, who was sitting in a front-row seat, said she too had read \u201cThe Odyssey\u201d \u2014 \u201ctoo many times\u201d by her estimation. The first time Quinonez read it, she was in high school in Texas \u2014 but she can\u2019t recall which translation.<\/p>\n

Likely it was not the widely acclaimed translation by Emily Wilson<\/a>, the chair of the Classical studies department at the University of Pennsylvania and the first woman to publish an English translation of the ancient Greek poem in its entirety. Nolan is said to have relied on hers, much to the consternation of conservatives, who have taken issue<\/a> with her<\/a> translation, as well as some of Nolan\u2019s casting choices, accusing him of \u201cwokeness.\u201d All of that appeared to have held little resonance among the young and diverse crowd who arrived at Broadway and West 68th Street late on Saturday night for the Sunday showing.<\/p>\n

Seats for the IMAX theater at Lincoln Square were so elusive that many moviegoers were OK with grabbing tickets for the nearly three-hour film for the graveyard shift. (Online, tickets were reportedly being resold for hundreds of dollars<\/a>.) In fact, some even embraced it as a reason to do something a little unusual.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like we\u2019re part of something kind of exclusive,\u201d Quinonez said.<\/p>\n

Even a little scarcity proved thrilling. \u201cI\u2019m happy there was a struggle to get tickets,\u201d said Shreyas Kotla, a college student who had traveled to Manhattan from Washington D.C. specifically to see \u201cThe Odyssey.\u201d Kotla prepared by taking a nap earlier that day.<\/p>\n

Short-form video may yet prove the demise of cinema. For the filmgoers who surrendered a night of sleep to see the arrogant suitor Antinous (Robert Pattinson) get his just deserts, their sold-out screening was proof that a movie theater is an experience that no laptop or microwaved popcorn can replicate.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen people say film is dying \u2014 no, it\u2019s not,\u201d Kotla said.<\/p>\n

Dennis Corrales showed up to the 6 a.m. screening with an iced coffee in hand. He wore a T-shirt celebrating \u201cBarbenheimer<\/a>\u201d \u2014 the simultaneous release in 2023 of two very different blockbusters, Greta Gerwig\u2019s \u201cBarbie\u201d (about the doll) and Nolan\u2019s \u201cOppenheimer\u201d (about the nuclear scientist).<\/p>\n

Corrales saw \u201cOppenheimer\u201d at AMC Lincoln Square too. \u201cTickets weren\u2019t so in demand yet because no one really knew about that format,\u201d he explained, alluding to the growing awareness of the IMAX 70-millimeter format<\/a> at that time. \u201cOppenheimer<\/a>\u201d was widely celebrated as a masterpiece, but \u201cThe Odyssey<\/a>\u201d has arguably topped that nuclear drama in spectacle and ambition, having been the first feature film to be fully shot in IMAX.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow the demand is crazy,\u201d Corrales said. AMC said it would continue showing the film after midnight through mid-August at the Lincoln Square location.<\/p>\n

Mordechai Levovitz, founder of Jewish Queer Youth, showed up at the theater soon after 2 a.m. He was hoping to score a seat for the sold-out 6 a.m. showing, should anyone forgo theirs at the last minute. He went to the ticket kiosk in the theater\u2019s deserted ground floor lobby, frustrated by an interface that appeared to show an available ticket, only for it to vanish when he tried to pay for it.<\/p>\n

He tried again for the 6 a.m. a couple hours later.<\/p>\n

The same gods who guided Odysseus (Matt Damon) home to Ithaca smiled down on Levovitz, when a ticket for the 6 a.m. show suddenly materialized. This time, there was no glitch, no rug pulled out from under his feet.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe movie was way more relevant than I thought,\u201d he said, emerging after the movie into the cool, resplendent morning. \u201cThe collapse of civilization, ethics, institutions, society as we know it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Odysseus had returned home. Which is exactly where Levovitz was headed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m going to go to sleep,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An odyssey is a journey of homecoming, but the trek to the AMC Lincoln Square on the Upper…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":307177,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[116233,92883,95561,113978,45442,116234,68910,28924,80113,158,9,113976,56,63,65,64,113975],"class_list":["post-307176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-amc-entertainment-holding-inc","tag-box-office-sales","tag-christopher","tag-damon","tag-homer","tag-imax-corporation","tag-lincoln-square-manhattan","tag-manhattan-nyc","tag-matt","tag-movies","tag-new-york","tag-nolan","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-the-odyssey-2026-movie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=307176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307176\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/307177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}