Speaking with Collider’s Steve Weintraub while promoting The Odyssey— which adapts Homer’s story of Odysseus and his decade-long journey home after the Trojan War — Nolan recalled modifying an old medium-format stills lens for use on The Dark Knight. The resulting one-of-a-kind IMAX lens became essential for aerial footage and low-light city shots, and it quickly caught the attention of a couple of other blockbuster filmmakers. When Weintraub mentioned the importance of large-screen lenses for IMAX and recalled hearing that Nolan had bought old glass on the second-hand market before converting it for filmmaking, the director confirmed that was exactly what happened.
“No, you’re right. On The Dark Knight, we had to modify an old Hasselblad lens, stills camera, medium format lens, for the movie camera, for the IMAX camera,” Nolan said. More than a novelty, however, the modifications gave Nolan and his team a much-needed option for shooting in difficult conditions, particularly when lighting an environment was either impractical or impossible. “It was a T2 lens,” said Nolan, “which means you could shoot in relatively low light, so for aerials of cities and things where you can’t light it, it was a key lens.”
Collider Exclusive · Sci-Fi Survival Quiz Which Sci-Fi World Would You Survive? The Matrix · Mad Max · Blade Runner · Dune · Star Wars
Five universes. Five completely different ways the future went wrong — or sideways, or up in flames. Only one of them is the world your instincts were built for. Eight questions will figure out which dystopia, galaxy, or desert wasteland you’d actually make it out of alive.
💊The Matrix
🔥Mad Max
🌧️Blade Runner
🏜️Dune
🚀Star Wars
01
You sense something is deeply wrong with the world around you. What do you do? The first instinct is often the truest one.
02
In a world of scarcity, what resource do you guard most fiercely? What we protect reveals what we believe survival actually requires.
03
What kind of threat keeps you up at night? Fear is useful data — if you’re honest about what you’re actually afraid of.
04
How do you deal with authority you don’t trust? Every dystopia has a power structure. Your approach to it determines everything.
05
Which environment could you actually endure long-term? Survival isn’t just tactical — it’s physical, psychological, and very much about where you are.
06
Who do you want in your corner when things fall apart? The company you keep is the clearest signal of who you actually are.
07
Where do you draw the line — if you draw one at all? Every survivor eventually faces a moment that tests what they’re actually made of.
08
What would actually make survival worth it? Staying alive is one thing. Having a reason to is another.
Your Fate Has Been Calculated You’d Survive In…
Your answers point to the world your instincts were built for. This is the universe your temperament, your survival instincts, and your particular brand of stubbornness were made for.
The Resistance, Zion
The Matrix
You took the red pill a long time ago — probably before anyone offered it to you. You’re a systems thinker who can’t help but notice the seams in things.
You’re drawn to understanding how the system works before figuring out how to break it.
You’d find the Resistance, or it would find you — your instinct for spotting constructed realities is the machines’ worst nightmare.
You function best when you have access to information and the freedom to act on it.
The Matrix built an airtight prison. You’d be the one probing the walls for the door.
The Wasteland
Mad Max
The wasteland doesn’t reward the clever or the well-connected — it rewards those who are hard to kill and harder to break. That’s you.
You don’t need comfort, community, or a cause larger than the next horizon.
You need a vehicle, a clear threat, and enough fuel to outrun it — and you’re good at all three.
You are unsentimental enough to survive that world, and decent enough — just barely — to be something more than another raider.
In the wasteland, that distinction is everything.
Los Angeles, 2049
Blade Runner
You’d survive here because you know how to exist in moral grey areas without losing yourself completely.
You read people accurately, keep your circle small, and ask the questions others prefer not to answer.
In a city where humanity is a legal designation rather than a feeling, you hold onto something that keeps you functional.
You’re not a hero. But you’re not lost, either.
In Blade Runner’s world, that distinction is everything.
Arrakis
Dune
Arrakis is the most hostile environment in the known universe — and you are precisely the kind of person it rewards.
Patience, discipline, and political awareness are your core strengths — and on Arrakis, they’re survival tools.
You understand that the long game matters more than any single victory.
Others come to Dune and are consumed by it. You’d learn its logic and earn its respect.
In time, you wouldn’t just survive Arrakis — you’d begin to reshape it.
A Galaxy Far, Far Away
Star Wars
The galaxy far, far away is vast, loud, and in a constant state of violent political upheaval — and you wouldn’t have it any other way.
You find meaning in being part of something larger than yourself — a cause, a crew, a rebellion.
You’d gravitate toward the Rebellion, or the fringes, or whatever pocket of the galaxy still believes the Empire’s grip can be broken.
You fight — not because you have to, but because standing aside isn’t something you’re capable of.
In Star Wars, that willingness is what makes all the difference.
J.J. Abrams and Zack Snyder Both Wanted Nolan’s IMAX Lens
At the time, that made it an extremely rare bit of tech. Nolan revealed that it was “the only one in the world at the time,” and that scarcity eventually turned it into one of the more sought-after tools in blockbuster filmmaking. In fact, Nolan said the lens became so sought after that Nolan’s fellow legendary directors were often at odds over who got to use it. “I used to have filmmakers, from J.J. Abrams and Zack Snyder, fighting over it and wanting to borrow it for different films,” Nolan said. The director added that the modified lens has remained part of his toolkit for years after The Dark Knight helped change the way Hollywood thought about large-format filmmaking, saying he still uses it “to this day.”
Nolan noted that IMAX technology has changed drastically in the almost two decades since he first had to show that piece of ingenuity to get The Dark Knight made the way he wanted to. He pointed out that filmmakers no longer have to rely on adapting vintage still-photography lenses in quite the same way, because IMAX and Panavision have since expanded the available options, telling Collider: “But, as of now, IMAX and Panavision have made a lot more lenses along those lines and really expanded the toolset for filmmakers.” That evolution of the lenses available to filmmakers is central to The Odyssey, which was shot entirely in IMAX 70mm and continues Nolan’s long-running work with cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema.
