The biggest fantasy hero battle in Hollywood is shaping up over a release date: Dec. 18. While Warner Bros.’ and Legendary’s Dune: Part Three and Disney and Marvel’s Avengers: Doomsday have officially claimed the same release date for months, this week’s drop of the Dune movie’s poster publicly declaring the Dec. 18 date seemed to solidify the stand-off as actually happening. Which means that at a time when theaters are starving to fill seats, two of the year’s most anticipated films—perhaps the most anticipated—will arrive on the exact same day. Denis Villeneuve had a new Imax lens hand-crafted specifically for Dune: Part Three, and Rebecca Ferguson admitted to having “a lot of FOMO” after learning she only has one scene in the film. A theater chain representative groaned, “Someone’s gotta move. That’s a level of overwhelm that doesn’t make sense. Especially after the last few years [of theaters struggling]. An Avengers movie and Dune 3 are both sure things.” Unlike the mismatched Barbie and Oppenheimer clash in 2023, these two epic fantasy sequels have significant audience overlap. Dune: Part Two skewed heavily male on its opening weekend at 68 percent, with many ticket buyers over 25. Conversely, Avengers: Endgame saw a 60-40 gender split, with Millennials and Gen Zers dominating. The issue isn’t just about fewer tickets sold due to competition. Big fans of both franchises will likely see both films, though some may save one for streaming. Other films in the marketplace, like Robert Eggers’ The Werewulf, Jumanji 3, The Angry Birds Movie 3, and Jonathan Levine’s untitled John Tuggle pic, will also compete. Awards contenders will further strain the market. “It will be especially bad for specialty distributors because everybody’s going to free up every screen they have for those two films,” says an exhibitor.#warner_bros #disney #legendary #denis_villeneuve #marvel
