IMAX's Limited-Edition Film Camera Popcorn Bucket Is a Collectible Tribute to the Technology Behind ‘The Odyssey’
The bucket’s viewfinder lights up to reveal a scene from Christopher Nolan’s latest epic.
Summary
- IMAX has released a limited-edition popcorn bucket inspired by the IMAX 15/65mm Film Camera, the camera Christopher Nolan has called “the Gold Standard” and used across The Dark Knight, Interstellar, Oppenheimer, and The Odyssey
- The collectible features a viewfinder that lights up to reveal a scene from The Odyssey in IMAX’s exclusive 1.43:1 Expanded Aspect Ratio, available exclusively at store.imax.com while supplies last
- The Odyssey is the first-ever feature film shot entirely with IMAX Film Cameras, opening everywhere on July 17 with a cast including Matt Damon, Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Robert Pattinson, Lupita Nyong’o, Zendaya, and Charlize Theron
IMAX has released a limited-edition popcorn bucket modeled on the IMAX 15/65mm Film Camera, available exclusively at store.imax.com while supplies last. The collectible arrives ahead of The Odyssey, Christopher Nolan‘s mythic action epic opening July 17, and the first feature film in history to be shot entirely with IMAX Film Cameras. The bucket’s viewfinder lights up to reveal a scene from the film in IMAX’s exclusive 1.43:1 Expanded Aspect Ratio, giving the object a direct visual connection to the production technology it commemorates.
The design choice to model the bucket on the IMAX 15/65mm camera is specific and earned. The 15/65mm is not a prop or a legacy piece: it is the active shooting format Nolan has used across The Dark Knight, Interstellar, Oppenheimer, and now The Odyssey, and the camera he has publicly described as “the Gold Standard.” Its specs justify that designation — the IMAX 15/65mm delivers nearly 10x the resolution of conventional 35mm film and 3x the resolution of standard 5-perf 65mm cameras, producing the highest-resolution footage in motion picture history. A popcorn bucket designed around that object is a tribute to a working piece of filmmaking infrastructure, not a piece of movie memorabilia in the conventional sense.
The Odyssey gives the bucket its most significant context. The film used 2.1 million feet of film across production, a distance longer than the stretch from Toronto to New York. Over 260,000 feet was shot with the new IMAX Film Camera developed specifically for the production, named “The Keighley” in honor of IMAX’s late Chief Quality Officer David Keighley and his wife Patricia, both pioneers of the 70mm format. Nearly 1,000,000 feet was shot inside the new blimp — a groundbreaking enclosure that enabled sync sound capture in perfect alignment with the image, the technical breakthrough that made shooting the entire film in IMAX possible. Cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema called it “the most essential piece of equipment on this production.” The carbon fiber components of the new IMAX Film Cameras are the same grade used in Formula 1 race cars and high-performance supercars.
The Odyssey presents in IMAX’s 1.90:1 Expanded Aspect Ratio for the entire film, with select IMAX with Laser and IMAX 70mm Film locations presenting the full film in the towering 1.43:1 ratio — the largest image area available anywhere in the world. Special engagements in IMAX 70mm Film, the largest format ever used in motion pictures, will deliver the film entirely in 1.43:1, offering the most immersive version of a production that was conceived and executed entirely within IMAX’s specifications from the first frame to the last. The bucket’s lit viewfinder, revealing a scene in that same 1.43:1 ratio, makes the format itself the souvenir.
The limited-edition IMAX Film Camera Popcorn Bucket is available exclusively online while supplies last. The Odyssey opens everywhere on July 17.
