The hardest movie ticket to get this weekend was for a film that audiences have been able to see at home for years: Christopher Nolan’s “Interstellar.”

The sci-fi epic starring Matthew McConaughey and Anne Hathaway grossed $4.5 million in just 166 theaters in the U.S. and Canada. The 70mm IMAX film screenings sold out in minutes, leaving theaters scrambling to add more films and people paying up to $300 on the resale market. Those 10 screens alone averaged a staggering $70,000 per theater, one of the highest of the year, and they usually boast acclaimed arthouse films that play in just four screens.

Ten years after “Interstellar” hit theaters as a special exception when studio Paramount was focused on a digital future, the film is not only back, but also attracting audiences to theaters.

“I was just so pleased with the response,” Nolan said in an exclusive interview with The Associated Press. “It’s really exciting when people respond to your work at any point. But 10 years later, getting a new audience to experience it the way we originally intended on the big IMAX screens and especially on these IMAX film prints? It’s really rewarding to see it continue to have a life.”

How Nolan fought for the film and its re-release

“Interstellar” was a labor of love, with Nolan bucking the currents of a changing industry to make films sure of their worth. Like McConaughey’s Cooper, an astronaut clinging to skills all but obsolete in his dusty reality, “Interstellar” was made by a celluloid-loving filmmaker when the format was least appreciated.

“Celluloid film was very threatened. Digitalization has taken over everything,” said Nolan. “We put a tremendous amount of work and effort into releasing the IMAX 70mm film format back then and felt like we didn’t know how much longer we would be able to do it.”

“Interstellar” was received positively at the time and was a clear success, but it also had critics. The five Oscar nominations and the win all went to Arts and Crafts. And yet, in the decade since, “Interstellar” has become a beloved classic. Nolan noted that it was the film that people kept wanting to talk about, telling him what it meant to them and asking if it would ever be re-released. The big emotions and sentimental themes of love, family and exploration that were burdensome for some are now his most treasured qualities.

“A lot of these people were younger people who, I realized, had seen the film at home and hadn’t had a chance to see it on the big screen,” Nolan said.

Although there have been re-releases of Interstellar internationally, in China and at the Science Museum in London, Nolan saw an opportunity and spoke to IMAX and Paramount, now under a new regime, about a proper 10th anniversary re-release in North America . The prints, Nolan said, had not aged a day.

IMAX hardly needed convincing: the anniversary date was circled on the calendar. “Interstellar” was by far the biggest request on their social channels for years.

“We saw this from the beginning,” said IMAX CEO Rich Gelfond. “It reminded us a little of the excitement surrounding ‘Oppenheimer.’ But the result far exceeded our expectations.”

“Interstellar” is now the ninth-biggest IMAX release of all time, closing in on eighth place (currently occupied by “The Last Jedi”). The company is currently exploring options for re-releases in various territories.

What should Hollywood learn from the weekend?

The “Oppenheimer” effect was real as it offset the value of the film to the company.

IMAX screens accounted for approximately 20% of the global production of this year’s Best Picture Oscar winner, valued at nearly $1 billion (IMAX is at No. 5). While filmmakers have long valued film stock, studios, distributors and theaters have taken notice of the demand with “Oppenheimer.” Earlier this year, screenings of “Dune: Part Two” sold out for four weeks. And there’s more to come: Ryan Coogler’s new film “Sinners”, which opens in March 2025, was shot with IMAX cameras.

The release of “Interstellar” was rather “low-key” in terms of advertising, but it didn’t need much – the fans made sure of that. Before IMAX even announced ticket sales, some noticed that AMC had made them. The news spread on social media and overnight all 70mm IMAX screenings at Lincoln Square in New York were sold out. It wasn’t just the “primetime” broadcast times: the 1 a.m. showings were also fully booked.

After the weekend’s turnout exceeded expectations, additional 70mm IMAX screenings were added throughout the week, which also quickly booked up.

While Nolan is an anomaly in some ways, being the rare filmmaker whose name alone can draw crowds for original fare, there’s a lot to be learned from the weekend.

“It once again shows our industry that audiences truly understand the difference between the communal big-screen cinema experience they crave and the films they have been able to watch at home,” Nolan said. “This theatrical experience that we all know and love is so powerful and so exciting. This is very clear evidence of that, especially considering all the big hits out there right now: “Wicked,” “Gladiator II,” and “Moana 2.”

“Audiences flock to this experience that we all love.”

Dream big for the future and appreciate the past

Ahead of the weekend, Nolan was able to see the film on the big screen for the first time since its original release, accompanied by his Oscar-winning “Oppenheimer” cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema. Interstellar was their first collaboration and Hoytema’s introduction to IMAX cameras (where he proved you could hand-hold them if you tried hard enough).

“It was really, really fun,” Nolan said.

He also approved the new 4K UHD set “Interstellar,” which is available now.

Since Oppenheimer’s big night at the Oscars and Nolan’s Best Director win, there has been a lot of speculation about his next film, with cast and genre rumors circulating almost daily, none of which have been officially confirmed. He doesn’t talk about it publicly yet. However, he will say one thing: he is intensively testing a new film technology with IMAX, which will be used in the next production.

“They have an incredible engineering team, really brilliant minds doing exceptional work,” he said. “It’s wonderful to see that innovation in celluloid film is still happening at the highest levels.”

And he still makes time to go to the movies. Over the weekend, Nolan attended “Wicked” at a theater in Burbank, where he also took a look at one of the IMAX presentations of his film.

“It was pretty magical to see a full house for this movie,” he said. “It was really special to see 10 years later.”