Dune Part 3 just aired yet another astonishing trailer yesterday, the culmination of Denis Villeneuve’s all-time great sci-fi trilogy, provided he sticks the landing. All indications are that he will. However, there’s a strange aspect to this release I continue to fail to understand. Dune Part 3 and Avengers: Doomsday both insist on being released on the same day, December 18, 2026.
Why? Shouldn’t one move? That certainly seems like the logical decision, and the logical choice is…Dune Part 3.
I know that people do not want to hear this. There is a social media uproar at the suggestion, saying that the sci-fi greatness of Dune should knock “superhero slop” Avengers: Doomsday off that date, but that does not reflect any kind of reality I can see, and this situation can only damage Dune.
I, too, believe Dune Part 3 will be a better film. Doomsday has felt a bit wobbly from the start, particularly after a mostly underwhelming era of Marvel since Endgame. And Dune 3, like the film before it, looks absolutely incredible. But the numbers do not make much sense for Dune 3 here.
Look, just…look:
- Dune Part 1 – $41 million domestic opening weekend, $410 million global box office
- Dune Part 2 – $82 million domestic opening weekend, $714 million global box office
- The Avengers – $207 million domestic opening weekend, $1.5 billion global box office
- Avengers: Age of Ultron – $191 million domestic opening weekend, $1.4 billion global box office
- Avengers: Infinity War – $252 million domestic opening weekend, $2.05 billion global box office
- Avengers: Endgame – $357 million domestic opening weekend, $2.79 billion global box office
While I do not expect Avengers: Doomsday to hit Endgame numbers, and I would expect Dune Part 3 to potentially surpass Part 2, the latter is going to be hurt more than the former by this move. I don’t see how it won’t be. The overlap is significant enough to matter here in terms of subject matter as well, both big-budget sci-fi features, albeit one a high-concept novel adaptation and the other a superhero team-up. There are still millions who will want to see both. This isn’t one of these going against The Devil Wears Prada 2. I think Dune gets the short end of this, no matter what social media may be saying.
At this point, there’s one factor that makes this unlikely, if not impossible. That would be the slick move that Dune Part 3 has secured loads of IMAX screens over Avengers: Doomsday its opening weekend, a coup that Dune fans celebrated, as they should. That said, the relative unavailability of “true” IMAX screens in many places will likely not make this a deciding box office factor.
I remain confused about the decision being made here, that Dune is insisting on planting itself on this date. With the IMAX situation, I suppose it could be possible that Avengers moves instead, but again, with anywhere from 2x to 4x the opening weekends and revenue of Dune movies, it may just be willing to shrug it off. So far, no one is blinking in this game of chicken.
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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.