Denis Villeneuve's Dune movie adaptation is off to a solid start at the domestic box office, thanks to its Thursday preview screenings.
The sci-fi film earned $5.1 million from its Thursday showings and is expected to gross $30-40 million in its first three days of release, reported Variety. Its Thursday previews intake surpassed that for last week's Halloween Kills, which took in $4.9 million from its Thursday evening screenings on its way to a $49.4 million opening. And while the Halloween sequel did premiere in theaters and on Peacock simultaneously, Dune looks to make less this weekend thanks to factors like its runtime and the fact it debuted day-and-day in theaters and on HBO Max (a streamer believed to have a larger subscriber base than Peacock).
Dune -- or, as it's referred to in the actual movie, Dune: Part 1 -- adapts the first half of Frank Herbert's classic 1965 sci-fi novel of the same name, with Villeneuve planning to adapt the rest of the book in a sequel. “The story in itself sets up for a sequel. The production is so amazing, and the storytelling is so compelling that it’s not going to be judged on box office alone,” said Warner Bros. CEO Ann Sarnoff, explaining that the studio will evaluate "the entirety of what Dune can do for the company, including HBO Max" before giving the go-ahead to Dune: Part 2.
With a production budget of $165 million (not including marketing), Dune has a way to go before it turns a profit. That said, it's already grossed $129.7 million at the global box office and looks to add a significant amount to that total over the next three days. Helping matters, this weekend's other wide release in the U.S., the animated sci-fi comedy Ron's Gone Wrong, is only projected to open with $7-10 million and shouldn't have much of an impact on Dune's performance.
Critics are generally positive on Dune, with many praising its epic narrative and visuals while others take it to task for being too emotionally cold and problematic in its treatment of its source material's Middle Eastern influences. Calling the film Villeneuve's "attempt at making 2001: [A Space Odyssey] and Lawrence [of Arabia] at the same time," CBR's Dune review argued that "Where it falls short of greatness is how incomplete its story is -- a problem that should be remedied with Part 2."
Dune is now playing in theaters and streaming on HBO Max.
Source: Variety