Source: collider.com/By Rahul Malhotra
Director Denis Villeneuve’s science-fiction epic remains the top-grossing movie of the year.
Warner Bros. and Legendary’s Dune: Part Two is showing no signs of slowing down at the box office. Yes, the movie slipped out of the top five for the first time in its domestic run, but it still managed to gross $7 million this weekend. Internationally, the epic science-fiction sequel added around $11 million, continuing a phenomenal run that was briefly impacted by fellow W.B. and Legendary release Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire.
With $265 million domestically and another $395 million from overseas markets, Dune: Part Two has hit a cumulative global total of $660 million as it enters its sixth week of release. This past week, the movie overtook Wonka to become star Timothée Chalamet’s biggest-ever hit at the global box office. It has long since overtaken its estimated break-even point of $500 million and has now grossed over $250 million more worldwide than its predecessor, Dune.
Also directed by Denis Villeneuve, the first Dune was famously released day-and-date on the streaming service formerly known as HBO Max. Villeneuve was vocally upset about this, but W.B. appears to have made up for past differences by rolling out the red carpet for Dune: Part Two. The movie was strategically delayed because of the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes of 2023 and was given a lavish global roll-out on Premium Large-Format and IMAX screens in March. In fact, it’s one of the biggest-ever IMAX releases of all time, grossing around $140 million in the format since its release.
Excitement for a Third ‘Dune’ Film Is Reaching Fever-Pitch
Dune: Part Two picked up from where Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer left off last year, after receiving a hugely important endorsement from Nolan himself. Combined with the excellent reviews — the movie has earned a 93% “fresh” rating on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes — the movie managed to deliver the top debut of 2024, doubling what the first film had grossed in peak-pandemic 2021. All of this is an anomaly, considering its dense themes of religion and authoritarianism, its demanding run-time, and the film’s complete lack of caped superheroes.