A few years ago we had -how could we forget- Barbenheimer. For months, companies tried to copy the strategy of releasing two films very different from each other and giving them a supposedly viral name, without any success… until now. And on December 18, Avengers: Doomsday and Dune 3 will be released worldwide, and from the very beginning fans have wondered which of the two behemoths would win. The answer is simple: both.
Dunesday
The prospect of spending six hours stuck inside a movie theater may not be the most appealing for a lot of people on a Friday night, but the fans know perfectly well what they’re getting into, and if the gods of cinema have decided that Marvel and Dune have to share a day, who are we to contradict them? Doomsday has already dominated presales and today, on opening day for Denis Villeneuve’s film, it hasn’t disappointed.
In just 24 hours, Dune 3 has stormed ahead by selling 33,000 tickets for BFI IMAX (the biggest screen in the country) in the UK alone, proving the power of the format. It’s worth remembering that Doomsday will not be released in IMAX, leaving the biggest theaters exclusively for visiting Arrakis. In total, it has already grossed nearly one million dollars, thus smashing the previous record set by The Odyssey.
Its success in the rest of the world remains to be seen, but it promises to follow the same trend, leaving both films clearly split: one will succeed in IMAX, the other in regular theaters, repeating the summer pattern of Spider-Man: Brand New Day and The Odyssey… Only on a very, very, very large scale: nobody’s going to be able to get into movie theaters.
