Dune: Part Two Set to Make a Strong Box Office Debut
We’ve been waiting for this one for quite some time. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that Legendary Entertainment and Warner Bros.’ Dune: Part Two opens this weekend to give a much-needed jolt of testosterone to a box office winded by the dual strikes’ delay of titles. To date, the annual 2024 domestic box office hasn’t cracked a billion dollars yet, with only $866.3M through Sunday, 18% behind the January 1-February 25 frame a year ago.
The second part to Denis Villeneuve’s multi-Oscar-winning 2021 feature take of the classic Frank Herbert novel could very well see a $170M worldwide opening — that’s divided into $85M–$90M abroad and another $80M on the high end in U.S./Canada. Warners conservatively is projecting $65M, but most exhibitors and tracking services see near $80M.
Content is king. Dune: Part Two at $190M largely was financed by Legendary, but Warner Bros. does have a low-double-digits stake in the pic. Warners will get a small share of the box office and also a distribution fee. The studio spent on global marketing in a campaign steered by its marketing guru Josh Goldstine, monies which that be recouped in the downstream waterfall.
Still, the afterglow will give some shine to the beleaguered David Zaslav-run Warner Bros Discovery with its $8.60 share price (at the time of this report), which hopefully could uptick next week. The conglom’s latest Q4 was softened by strikes and a dull ad marketplace. However, Zaslav promised that it will “have an attack plan for 2024” and that includes “a more robust creative pipeline across our film and TV studios.” Well, here come the sandworms.
Note that a $65M-$80M domestic opening would be wonders above the $41M domestic opening of 2021’s Dune, which saw its ticket sales siphoned by a theatrical day-and-date release on streaming service HBO Max back in early October that year. Still, Dune is one of a handful of day-and-date titles to cross $100M at the domestic box office and one of only two to cross $400M-plus worldwide, along with Legendary’s Godzilla vs. Kong. It was one of the few blockbusters that worked both in homes and theaters, but it certainly left money on the table.
That stateside confidence stems from advance ticket sales which lean greatly toward fanboys and premium formats like IMAX and PLF. Sources tell us that all in as of last Friday, Dune: Part Two has collected $18M in advance ticket sales ($11.5M of that from the top three circuits). Fandango counts around 200K which is just under where Jurassic World: Dominion ($145M opening) and ahead of Oppenheimer ($82.4M). Dune: Part Two‘s advance sales are also in line with Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 3. However, industry sources aren’t getting over their skis: While these types of presales indicate a $100M-plus opening on Dune: Part Two, the challenge is that non-premium sales are OK on the Zendaya, Timothee Chalamet, Austin Butler and Florence Pugh space opera. That’s what’s currently pulling down estimates to $80M vicinity stateside.
But there are even more indicators for Dune: Part Two to overperform: The movie has excellent reviews, at 97% certified fresh on Rotten Tomatoes versus the first movie’s 83%. A critic from the Los Angeles Times heralded “an instant landmark of its genre,” and the New York Post beamed, “Our blockbuster drought is over, thanks to a brilliant sequel set on a sweltering desert planet.”
Dune: Part Two is booked at 4,050 theaters in U.S./Canada, with 3,400 locations going on Thursday previews. The pic already has yielded $2M from an Imax Fans First Event on Sunday that will be rolled up into Thursday’s number. The movie will be playing in every premium format, i.e. Screen X, Dolby, D-Box — the list goes on.
The sequel begins overseas rollout on Wednesday, starting in France, Korea, Italy and Scandinavia. Thursday adds 42 markets including Germany, Australia, Brazil, Mexico and all of Latin America. On Friday, Spain and the UK join the play to round out an international launch in 71 markets.
As far as that $85M-$90M overseas opening goes, there’s wiggle room, of course. We are looking at a movie that’s been saddled with a sort of s
