Interstellar’s 10th anniversary IMAX re-release ‘really thrilling’, Christopher Nolan says

Director pleased to see ‘new audiences’ experiencing sci-fi epic on big screen – and proof watching with others in a cinema is still a draw

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Matthew McConaughey in a still from Interstellar. Its sold-out re-release at IMAX cinemas in North America, gratified director Christopher Nolan, who reflects on the success of his sci-fi epic. Photo: AP

Published: 3:15pm, 11 Dec 2024Updated: 3:16pm, 11 Dec 2024

The hardest movie ticket to get in North America last weekend was for a film audiences have been able to watch at home for years: Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar.

The science fiction epic starring Matthew McConaughey and Anne Hathaway earned US$4.5 million from only 166 screens in the US and Canada. Its 70mm IMAX film presentations sold out in minutes, leaving cinemas scrambling to add more and people paying up to US$300 on the re-sale market.

Ten years after Interstellar was given a film release as a special exception at time when its studio, Paramount, was committing to a digital future, film is not only back but driving audiences to cinemas.

“I was just so gratified by the response,” Nolan said. “It’s really thrilling when people respond to your work at any point. But 10 years later, to have new audiences coming and experiencing it in the way that we’d originally intended it on the big IMAX screens and in particular on those IMAX film prints? It’s really rewarding to see that it continues to have a life.”

Interstellar had been a labour of love, with Nolan fighting against the tides of a changing industry to use film, certain of its value. Like McConaughey’s Cooper, an astronaut clinging to skills that were all but obsolete in his dust bowl reality, Interstellar was made by a celluloid-loving filmmaker when the format was least valued.