Will 'Dunesday' be The Biggest Weekend of Cinema Ever?
Since the huge success of the same day release of Barbie and Oppenheimer in 2023, Hollywood has announced another blockbuster matchup for December of Dune: Part Three and Avengers: Doomsday.
Who could forget the extraordinary hype around Barbenheimer? The portmanteau that heralded the impending same day release for Greta Gerwig's Barbie and Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer. It produced wildly lucrative results for both movies (and theatres around the globe). Barbie made $356m worldwide on its opening weekend - and went on to make $1.4 billion), while Oppenheimer shattered expectations by taking $180m, and went on to gross just shy of $1 billion. And now we have Dunesday coming up on 18 December. Will it be as spectacularly successful?
Dune is the dramatic conclusion of an epic, skilfully told story that has so far made more than $1 billion worldwide, whilst Doomsday is the first Avengers film since 2019’s Endgame, which was for a time the biggest movie of all time, at a whopping $2.8 billion. Both movies are next instalments of fantastically lucrative movie franchises, whereas the Barbenheimer duo were both first-time releases with no track records.
Whilst Barbie and Oppenheimer fit together like two bizarre puzzle pieces, one cleansing the palette of the other, for a mutually beneficial result, Dunesday feels like two similar movies chasing pretty much the same audience - all be it with giant fan bases.
We will know the result before the year is out and, of course, OGN will keep you posted.
