Oppenheimer’s IMAX 70mm film prints weigh 600 pounds and are 11 miles long. Here’s what IMAX will do with them after the movie leaves theaters.
Christopher Nolan loves the big screen. Oppenheimer is proving, once again, that it loves him right back. But long before anyone had actually seen Nolan’s fantastic biopic, the director and his fans alike were talking about its biggest (literally) selling point: IMAX 70mm film projection.
As Nolan and IMAX said in the lead-up to the unlikely blockbuster’s release last month, the three-hour movie spanned a jaw-dropping 11 miles when laid out on IMAX 70mm film, and weighed around 600 pounds. But here’s a question that wasn’t part of the hype cycle: What happens to a 600-pound, 11-mile film reel when it’s done being played in theaters? Polygon reached out to IMAX for the answer.
It turns out that most prints of Oppenheimer will go into storage, despite their massive size. IMAX says it’s worth keeping them around because they will still get plenty of use. According to an IMAX representative, IMAX 70mm film lasts, on average, 10 times longer than standard 35mm or 70mm film, meaning that the existing reels can be used for the next 20 years.
