Timothée Chalamet stars in Warner Bros.’ “Dune.”
Warner Bros.
“Dune: Part Two” has been pushed off its 2023 box office slate amid dual Hollywood labor strikes, threatening its ability to market itself to the masses.
on Thursday, warner bros discovery And Legendary Entertainment announced that the Denis Villeneuve film will move to March 15, 2024, taking the calendar spot from “Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire,” which runs until April 12, 2024.
The reshuffle also displaces the animated film “Lord of the Rings: War of the Rohirrim” to December 13, 2024.
Box office analysts have long speculated that the “Dune” sequel would skip its 2023 release date amid strikes from the Writers Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild. Due to the SAG strike, in particular, actors are not allowed to promote current or even past films that were made by the studios of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.
AMPTP is currently negotiating with the WGA and will likely not engage in negotiations with SAG-AFTRA until this is completed and a new contract is approved. Though the writers’ guild and producers are at the negotiating table, talks are not moving fast and hence a solution is unlikely to happen in enough time for “Dune: Part Two” to have its star-studded group actively start filming. can promote
Along with industry veterans such as Christopher Walken, Stellan Skarsgård, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, Dave Bautista and Jason Momoa, the film stars four of Hollywood’s hottest young stars.
Zendaya, Timothée Chalamet, Florence Pugh and Austin Butler collectively have over 200 million followers on Instagram and are trending faces on TikTok, Twitter and other social media platforms.
While older moviegoers, who are fans of the book and saw “Dune” for the first time, will flock to the theatres, the younger audience may miss out on watching the film without the promotion of these stars.
Postponing “Dune: Part Two” could help boost its box office lead in 2024, but it will slightly dent Warner Bros. Discovery’s 2023 success.
After the stupendous success of “Barbie” and with growing skepticism about December’s “Aquaman: The Lost Kingdom,” “Dune: Part Two” was an important 2023 release for the studio and was expected to do well among audiences. .
Its predecessor excelled at the box office during the pandemic, despite being released day-by-day on the streaming service HBO Max (now simply called Max). It received 10 Academy Award nominations and won six Oscars.
With pandemic restrictions on movie theaters lifted, there are expectations that “Dune: Part Two” will surpass the previous film’s nearly $400 million gross at the global box office in 2021 on a reported budget of $165 million.
Replacing “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire”, the “Dune” sequel should retain access to most premium format screens, such as imaxand benefit from consumers increasingly drawn to these unique, and more expensive, theatrical experiences.
Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC. NBCUniversal is a member of AMPTP.