Why doesn't India have a true IMAX 15/70 screen? Real reasons explained

India is currently speaking the Nolan language. Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey is arriving tomorrow, but there is one way of watching it that Indian audiences cannot experience at home. The film has been shot entirely on IMAX 15/70 film, the largest and rarest format in modern cinema. Only 41 cinemas in the world can project it. India has none.

That absence feels particularly striking now. Around the world, fans are travelling across countries to watch The Odyssey in the format Nolan intended. In Melbourne, the only cinema in the Southern Hemisphere screening the film on 15/70 film has become a destination in itself. Its print stretches for more than 17km and weighs about 240kg. For Indian audiences, the same journey ends at a digital IMAX screen.

This is not to say that India's IMAX screens are poor. They are often excellent. But the word IMAX covers several different experiences. A digital or laser IMAX presentation can offer a large screen, powerful sound and a striking image. A true 15/70 IMAX presentation is something else: a towering 1.43:1 image projected from a huge strip of film, with the frame extending far beyond the familiar widescreen shape.

The difference matters to filmmakers such as Nolan, who has spent years defending the format. The name 15/70 refers to the 70mm film stock and the 15 perforations used for each frame. It allows an enormous amount of image information to be captured and projected. For Nolan, it is not simply an old-fashioned alternative to digital filmmaking. It is a way of making the cinema screen feel physically bigger.

Shooting The Odyssey in the format came with its own complications. The cameras are heavy and noisy. The film stock has to be changed frequently, sometimes every three minutes during production. Nolan also worked with IMAX on a soundproof casing for the roughly 180kg camera, allowing dialogue to be recorded while shooting on 1570 film for the first time.

So why doesn't India have it?

The format is so rare partly because the infrastructure needs to show it is demanding. A cinema needs the right projector, the right screen and trained staff who know how to handle enormous film prints. The print itself must be shipped, stored and threaded through a projector built to handle a format that has largely disappeared from commercial cinemas.

1. The question of economics.

“India is a vast country, and IMAX requires significant capital investment. We have moved from single-screen theatres to multiplexes and megaplexes, but the economics of IMAX remain challenging. Out of around 3,000 multiplex screens and an estimated 4,000 to 5,000 single screens in the country, having around 34 IMAX screens is still significant,” Girish Wankhede, former National Marketing Head at PVR Cinemas, told India Today in an exclusive interview.

2. How many IMAX-friendly movies are really being made?

Wankhede argued that an IMAX setup is costly and demanding. Once a film ends its run, even after weeks in theatres, there's nothing to compensate for the investment. "One challenge is the lack of a continuous supply of IMAX films. A film like Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey may run for several weeks, but once it leaves theatres, there can be a lull. Unless there is a steady flow of IMAX releases, it becomes difficult to justify the huge capital investment required for these screens," he continued.

India once had a stronger relationship with 70mm IMAX. In the 2000s, commercial 70mm IMAX screens existed in cities including Mumbai, Hyderabad, Ghaziabad and Kolkata. India is not entirely without 15/70 IMAX technology today: Gujarat Science City in Ahmedabad has a projector capable of showing the format, but it is primarily used for educational and scientific films rather than commercial releases.

For a film such as The Odyssey, Indian audiences still have no 15/70 IMAX option. Digital projection was easier to install, easier to maintain and far more practical for multiplexes that needed to show a wide range of films.

3. Do we have enough audience for IMAX?

Wankhede noted that Indian moviegoers may be willing to pay a premium for a major release, but that does not necessarily mean they will pay a premium for the format itself.

“Indian audiences are generally more content-driven than experience-driven. They want to watch the film, but not necessarily pay a significant premium for the format in which they watch it,” he said. For example, you would want to watch The Odyssey, an Avatar, a Marvel biggie, a Dhurandhar or a Kantara on IMAX, but you wouldn't watch a medium or a small-budget film like De De Pyaar De, Houseful or Welcome on the same format.

“A section of the audience may be willing to pay Rs 3,000 for an IMAX experience, but most people would rather watch the same film in 2D for Rs 500 or Rs 600. India remains a price-conscious market," he highlighted.

There was, briefly, a chance for the old format to return. IMAX Melbourne removed its film projector in 2015, only to bring it back two years later after Nolan urged IMAX cinemas to screen Dunkirk in 15/70. That decision now looks remarkably prescient. The cinema is among the few places where audiences can watch The Odyssey as a true IMAX film experience.

Can The Odyssey change the IMAX story in India?

Wankhede believes it could help change the conversation in India.

"With Nolan's film and his visit to India, people are discussing the technology and the experience, and that is a wonderful thing. It shows that the Indian audience is maturing. If audiences are willing to travel to IMAX screens and create demand, national multiplex chains will take notice. That could encourage more investment in the format. The Odyssey could become a breakthrough film for the exhibition sector," he explained.

India's problem, then, is not a lack of interest in cinema. Quite the opposite. Indian audiences are willing to pay premium prices for major releases, and Nolan's films routinely generate enormous excitement here. The question is whether that demand is strong and consistent enough to justify the cost of maintaining a format that may be used for only a handful of films each year.

For now, India's answer is digital. There is nothing inherently wrong with that. But The Odyssey has made the gap impossible to ignore. Somewhere else, a 240kg reel is turning through a projector, carrying Homer's ancient voyage across a screen large enough to make the modern world disappear for a few hours. Indian audiences will still get to see Nolan's epic. They will still see the monsters, the gods and the long journey home. But not quite in the way in which the journey was made.

And perhaps that is the strange irony of The Odyssey: in an age when audiences can watch almost anything anywhere, the rarest cinematic experience is still the one that requires you to be in the right room, with the right machine, running the right piece of film.

For now, India is still waiting for that room.