Dune Part Two is finally here. The wide release starts tomorrow. Potentially the year’s first blockbuster arrives at a depressing time for the cinema industry, with revenues through the floor and a product pipeline drought. The movie opens tomorrow, and many hopes rest on it. So where does Denis Villeneuve’s big-budget sequel sit from an early tracking point of view?
Warner Bros. is playing it safe. They are lowballing with a very conservative estimate of $65 million domestically.
External tracking is talking about a $70-80 million domestic opening weekend with a further $80-90 million overseas from major markets. A total of $150-170 million for the weekend.
Context time – the box office revenue for the year so far is down 18% on last year, mostly due to changes in consumer habits embedding, then combined with the perfect storm of a lack of must-see content in theaters. Dune Part Two will be the biggest opening since Five Nights At Freddy’s back in October. That grabbed $80 million domestically. Could Dune Part Two beat that? It would need to be at the higher end.
Critics were not kind to Five Nights At Freddy’s but they love Dune Part Two. It is at 98% from more than 200 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes and our very own Drunken Yoda gave it 5 stars right here at Last Movie Outpost.
Dune Part One defied a pandemic and a day-and-date HBO Max release to pull in $41 million domestically. Dune Part Two has a larger budget and bigger marketing and promo spend.
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