IMAX honored its commitment to release Oppenheimer as a 70mm IMAX film despite Paramount's pressure, because loyalty — including to filmmaker Christopher Nolan — is the currency IMAX is built on.
Gelfond recounts how IMAX stood by its Nolan commitment on Oppenheimer despite Paramount pushing for Mission Impossible 7 screens, and extends the same principle to passing on Avengers in favor of a pre-committed Dune 3. ✦ AI generated
Rich Gelfond · The Compound · 2026-08-10 · original ↗
starts at this moment · 4:53
Tom was on a mission, pun intended. It was Mission Impossible 7. And uh we had dated Oppenheimer with Chris Nolan. ... The narrative that came out of Paramont, which was distributing the film at that time, was you guys are out of your minds. It's a biopic in black and white about a physicist. Why are you wasting screens on highway? ... And you know, Nolan's really one of few people who helped get us to where we are today. Loyalty is a big deal for us. So when we did it, we felt a lot of pressure around us, but we never flinched. ... For Dune 3 ... Avengers was supposed Doomsday supposed to be this summer and they had some production issues and they moved it to Christmas time right against Dune and ... they called and said well can't you do Avengers and ... I said you know we love you guys and we love to do your movie but we have a commitment and that's the currency that we're made of. So, as a result, we're missing out on Avengers.
verbatim transcript · starts at 4:53
4:53Michael was talking about uh IMAX and now I feel like everybody sort of gets it. Well, it's nice of you to say competing for IMAX screens. Tom was on a mission, pun intended. It was Mission Impossible 7. And uh we had dated Oppenheimer with Chris Nolan. And um they they it was the second week of what they moved into. They weren't there. We picked that date. And the narrative that
5:20came out of Paramont, which was distributing the film at that time, was you guys are out of your minds. It's a biopic in black and white about a physicist. >> Why are you wasting screens on highway? What are you kidding me? And um you know it wasn't easy to stand by our principles and say we committed to it. And and you know Nolan's really one of few people who helped get us to where we
5:44are today. Loyalty is a big deal for us. So when we did it, we felt a lot of pressure around us, but we never flinched. And you know, I like that even today to stay um true to our principles. So, an example of something we're dealing with right now is Dune 3 comes out around Christmas time and we think it's going to be a very big movie. Deny
6:08Villanu filmed it in part with IMAX cameras. There's going to be the same amount of prints as the Odyssey. We did great on Dune 2 and >> we saw we saw Michael and I saw Dune 2 at Lincoln Square here in Manhattan on the 70 millimeter. >> So it took us two weeks to get tickets and actually I think that's about when I first pitched the stock.
6:26>> So you must have known the CEO of the company to get >> now now we do. >> So Rich >> so no just just to finish his point. So Avengers was supposed Doomsday supposed to be this summer and they had some production issues and they moved it to Christmas time right against Dune and of course they called and said well can't you do Avengers and you know can't you
6:49do something about Dune and I said you know we love you guys and we love to do your movie but we have a commitment and that's the currency that we're made of. So, as a result, we're missing out on Avengers, which I'm sure will be a very good movie, but we're leaning into Dune, and I think we'll do really well on it. >> Disney said that they want to come out
7:09with uh a large format uh product. Do you think that's in response to not being able to get Avengers screens from you? >> Sure, it is. They've said it. I mean, you know, it's been all over the media and it's called Infinity Vision and they put the tickets on sale for Avengers Endgame and maybe Doomsday also. They're bringing back Endgame and um they the the first place to buy them is this
7:36thing, Infinity Vision. But Infinity Vision is a marketing technique that's they're not building new theaters. They're taking existing theaters with an X in them and they're bundling them and they're calling it Infinity Vision. And they've sort of said because we can't play IMAX, you know, again, I think um consumers will figure out whether IMMAX is different than that and I'm not losing sleep about it. >> So you guys have had a massive impact on