Did you notice that there was no release date at the end of the Dune trailer? According to inside sources, Warner Bros. is considering a delay:
Just the other day, we got the hotly anticipated trailer for Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of the sci-fi classic Dune. The movie looks stark, lyrical, and rapturous, everything a sci-fi fan could want.
There was something missing though: did you notice that the trailer has no release date?
Dune is scheduled to come out in theaters on December 18, and you figure Warner Bros. would have included that info in the first official trailer.
So why isn’t it there? Well, Warner Bros. might be hedging its bets. According to sources at IndieWire, it’s very possible that the movie will get delayed, and if you’ve been paying even a little attention to the news, it’s not hard to guess why: the COVID-19 pandemic has shut down movie theaters across the country, and although some have reopened, they’re doing so with reduced seating for the sake of safety. The odds of making a ton of money at the movie theater box office right now aren’t great, so Warner Bros. is thinking about pushing its movies back to when they’re better.
This thinking is bolstered by the middling success of Christopher Nolan’s mind-bending spy thriller Tenet, which came out this past Labor Day weekend. The movie took in $20.2 from North America on its long opening weekend, which is…fine-ish…but probably not what Warner Bros. will need to recoup the movie’s $200 budget.
And it’s no wonder the movie didn’t set the North American box on fire. Many theaters are still closed, and people are understandably wary of going back to the ones that are open. Again, it wouldn’t be shocking for Warner Bros. to look at this and go, “Yeah, maybe we’ll push things back until the country has the coronavirus situation under better control.”
IndieWire has also heard that Wonder Woman 1984, currently scheduled to land in theaters on October 2, may get pushed back. And then there are the non-Warner Bros. movies still on the schedule for this year: Disney’s Black Widow on November 6; James Bond flick No Time to Die on November 20; and Pixar’s Soul, also scheduled for November 20.
Black Widow and Soul are interesting, because they both come from Disney, which just released its live-action version of Mulan straight to its Disney+ streaming service without even bothering with a theatrical release, provided subscribers were willing to pay an extra $30 to watch it. (You’ll be able to watch it without the extra fee in a few months).
According to app download research firm Sensor Tower, downloads of the Disney+ app went up by 68% the weekend Mulan was released, while in-app spending went up 193%. We don’t know exactly what those numbers mean because Disney is cagey with its data, but it stands to reason that a lot of people signed up for Disney+ to get access to Mulan, and then paid the extra $30 to actually watch it. In other words, it seems like it’s been a hit, at least financially.
Might Disney just opt to release Black Widow and Soul in the same way? Might Warner Bros. just throw up its hands and release Wonder Woman 1984 and Dune on HBO Max?
A lot could still happen between now and when those movies are supposed to come out in theaters. Maybe more theaters will open and viewers will regain confidence; certainly that’s what theater owners are hoping. But there are other options…
To stay up to date on everything fantasy, science fiction, and WiC, follow our all-encompassing Facebook page and sign up for our exclusive newsletter.
Get HBO, Starz, Showtime and MORE for FREE with a no-risk, 7-day free trial of Amazon Channels
h/t SyFy Wire