After The Odyssey’s challenging shoot, Christopher Nolan says he’s taking a break from filmmaking – one that will last “at least” three years. The Odyssey’s use of real-world locations and massive IMAX cameras appears to have taken its toll on director Christopher Nolan, who now says he wants to take a break from filmmaking. Speaking ... Christopher Nolan says he won’t make another film for ‘at least’ another three years
After The Odyssey’s challenging shoot, Christopher Nolan says he’s taking a break from filmmaking – one that will last “at least” three years.
The Odyssey’s use of real-world locations and massive IMAX cameras appears to have taken its toll on director Christopher Nolan, who now says he wants to take a break from filmmaking.
Speaking about the film’s making on the US show, Today, Nolan was asked whether there’d be a three year gap between his latest epic and his next movie, and the filmmaker replied “Oh, at least.”
“I definitely hit the limits of my own stamina and everybody’s stamina, I think,” he said. “I mean, it’s The Odyssey, of course it should be difficult,” he noted. “We’re not doing the job right making a film of The Odyssey if it doesn’t seem difficult.”
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The challenging nature of the shoot isn’t marketing hot air, either. The use of an IMAX film camera alone meant that photographer Hoyte Van Hoytema and his team were asked to carry a piece of equipment that weighed a third of a metric tonne and made a sound like a washing machine on its spin cycle. Just to make things more interesting, a mag of IMAX film only lasts for three minutes.
Nolan’s use of remote real locations added a further layer of difficulty, as did shooting sequences on real waves rather than the more controlled environment of a water tank.
“I get bored on sound stages and sets, not because I wouldn’t want it to be difficult,” Nolan recently told The Guardian. “It’s because nature and the real world gives you a scale and a set of options and serendipity that you can’t achieve in the studio. But yeah, it was daunting physically and there were times where I felt like maybe I’d bitten off more than I could chew.”
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That demanding shoot – and generous $250m budget – has paid off, however. The Odyssey has taken just over $264m at the global box office on its opening weekend, with ticket sales bolstered by audiences choosing to see the film in its native IMAX format. That makes it the biggest worldwide debut weekend of Nolan’s career to date – the figures becoming all the more impressive given The Odyssey’s R rating.
As for whether Nolan really will take an extended break from filmmaking, his wife and producer partner Emma Thomas suggested to The Guardian that there’s a reason why he’s remained so steadily busy over the past 26 years: as soon as he finished one project, he can’t stop himself from thinking about the next.
“The first signs are probably about a week after he’s had nothing to do he starts to get really antsy,” Thomas said. “That’s when he’ll begin to really home in on: ‘OK, I need to do something.’”
The Odyssey is in cinemas now.
