Christopher Nolan’s love for IMAX does not need any explanation. The helmer of Oppenheimer has hailed the prestigious IMAX film format as “the Gold Standard of motion picture photography”. He is the reason behind Hollywood’s growing craze for the IMAX format.
Oppenheimer will release in only 30 locations globally with the IMAX 70mm format, meaning this run is limited. IMAX Melbourne (Australia) is also among those locations. The selected theatres will release the film in 15 perf/70mm format. The images in these theatres can be expanded to a 1.43:1 aspect ratio.
In a TikTok promotional video, Nolan demonstrated the features of Oppenheimer’s IMAX reel to Reece Feldman. He revealed that the reel was around 11 miles (17.7 km) long, weighing 600 lbs (nearly 272 kg).
Nolan shot the film in both colour and monochrome black-and-white format, something which has never been attempted before in IMAX’s history. In an interview with Total Film, The Dark Knight director shared his love for “the aesthetic charge of shifting between color and black and white” that he had on Memento. He wanted to replicate the same “color and black and white” formula in Oppenheimer as well, forcing him to approach Kodak photochem.
“So we challenged the people at Kodak photochem to make this work for us,” Nolan disclosed to Total Film. “And they stepped up. For the first time ever, we were able to shoot IMAX film in black-and-white. And the results were thrilling and extraordinary. As soon as Hoyte and I saw the first tests come in, we just knew that this was a format that we were immediately in love with.”
Directed by Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer will arrive in theatres worldwide on July 21. It stars Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr, Florence Pugh, and more. Stay tuned for more updates.