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.
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.