Dune - Why It's Likely To Struggle In Theaters

As we are entering the fall season of movies, which is where usually the awards contenders season begins and some notable indies are given some spotlight, we are seeing a vastly different lineup of movies coming both to streaming and in theaters due to the pandemic and the countless delays of these many projects. The one I want to talk about the most is Dune, which is the highly anticipated reboot of the infamous “book that cannot be adapted” type. It holds an all star cast and a filmmaker considered to be one of the greatest of our generation: Denis Villeneuve (Arrival, Sicario, Blade Runner 2049). It had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival and was met with mostly positive reception. So with the positive word of mouth, an all star cast and an established filmmaker, you’d think this film is destined to do fair business in theaters. Unfortunately, in our current climate and Dune’s situation release wise, it’s likely this will not perform as well as people are thinking. Now, it must be noted that it’s performing well internationally but there’s a good reason for that which we’ll address in a little bit. For now, I’d like to give the four main reasons why Dune will likely struggle to make a huge opening in theaters. And we’re gonna start off with the obvious one.

• Dune is releasing simultaneously in theaters and on HBO Max

As a part of the WB’s “excellent” strategy to release all their movies in 2021 simultaneously in theaters and on HBO Max, Dune is unfortunately a part of this deal. Some of you might be thinking why Dune couldn’t just be an exception. It’s actually not that simple. For those unaware, this deal was infamous for not informing any of the creatives, distributors, actors, investors and many others. They were not given any warning or heads up on what the studio was planning to do with their projects. Because of this, most of the industry (WB’s working partners & collaborators) were, for a lack of better word, pissed. And the studio has since then been in recovery mode, trying to repair relationships with many parties across their company. This deal, the day after it was announced, was made publicly known online through a YouTube video put out by HBO and WB, announcing the upcoming slate. Once that was done, this became an irreversible decision due to the public now already making the plan to watch the movies coming up on HBO Max. They’re not about to betray their consumers (aka the people that give them money). Even though this experiment has proven to be mostly a failure (even the CEO has publicly admitted it), this is still public knowledge and many have chosen to stick to streaming for their own personal reasons. There are people who will see Dune on HBO Max and WB is not about to take that option away from its consumers (even if it proves once again to do nothing but damage their products).

Even though the foreign markets are showing Dune exclusively in theaters, that is only a temporal idea and will partially help in giving the numbers Dune needs to become a financial success. The domestic market is going to be a hard one to get when you can watch Dune at the comfort of your home at anytime you want.

• Dune is NOT a well known IP

A lot of successful tent poles are established or existing IPs. It's rare when a new and fresh concept with that amount of money behind it resonates with audiences. And before you ask, Marvel movies do NOT count as new IPs at THIS point. If it's in the MCU, it's already bankable. There's no effort needed to market those movies because their 10 years of success say otherwise. They have proven over and over again their success whereas Dune is introducing a brand new franchise. And WB is banking on this to succeed and Denis Villeneuve is being somewhat ignorant towards it as he’s already drafting and drawing plans for the sequel (even though it's not greenlit yet). There are three kinds of people that know about Dune: those who read the book, those who saw the 1984 film and those who are movie fans. None of what I just mentioned are general audience members. And for a movie to succeed nowadays financially speaking, you have to be something recognizable or something appealing for mass audiences, which leads to my next point.

• Dune is a LONG movie

The most difficult part to getting someone to come see Dune or any film for that matter in the theater is the runtime. Moviegoers are in to see a movie that is two things: convenient and interesting. And Dune is only one of these things. As it stands, Dune is reportedly two hours and thirty one minutes. This is the reason why a lot of people will likely pass on this movie. Again, if it was an existing and successful IP (like Avengers for example), people would flock to see it and not care about the duration because of their love for that franchise. Dune is already facing an obstacle of trying to get people to come into their auditorium, which is asking for the commitment to sit for a very long time. And a lot of people will not sit for a long time for something they don’t know about. It’s ignorant but it’s just the mentality of your average movie-goer. Hopefully, the all star cast may help but I suspect it won’t pull big numbers. And then finally, establishing the mindset of a typical movie goer or a general audience member, Dune is facing another big obstacle: it has competition.

• Dune is NOT the most anticipated film coming out that month

The one piece that's guaranteed to make more money than Dune is Venom: Let There Be Carnage. It's an existing and successful IP (which we've addressed is the most appealing type of film to audiences) and is on most people's radar because of it. But more importantly, it has a tighter runtime: 1 hour and 30 minutes. And it is playing exclusively in theaters. Those are the main reasons why Venom will perform better than Dune. It’s destined to have more screenings, more viewership and is more rewatchable than Dune.

Some of you might be asking why I wouldn't throw in No Time To Die into the conversation. As I address up top, while James Bond is one of the most iconic and most recognizable characters in cinematic history, it's reportedly the longest film in the 25 film-spanning series. It could still pull numbers but it's still facing a similar obstacle that Dune is. Venom: Let There Be Carnage has all the benefits, which is why I say Venom will likely pull the most and do the best business in the month of October.

With Dune not in the public eye as much as Venom, Venom will likely rock the month of October and Dune will have to really resonate to pull in certain numbers. The only real way it can be successful is purely from quality and how many people will show up. Only time will tell but from all indications (its release, its runtime, etc), it doesn’t seem to have as good of legs as many think it does. But we’ll see in the future how Dune does. It’s a few weeks away.