Dune wins the weekend box office—Can they announce that sequel now?

After a year of delays, Dune finally opened in North American cinemas this weekend, and it did even better than analysts expected. According to Deadline, the movie raked in around $40.1 million over the weekend, tracking ahead of the forecast of $30-$35 million. Worldwide, it took in another $87.5 million, bringing its total haul to $220.7 million.

Notably, Dune was the biggest global opening ever for Imax. If you’re seen Dune, you know can imagine how all those spectacular desert landscapes would look on a mile-wide screen. Or maybe you don’t have to imagine.

Dune was made for a budget of $165 million, a number it’s now outpaced by a decent margin. And that’s not counting all the people who are watching it on HBO Max, where it also dropped over the weekend; according to TV analytics firm Samba TV, which gave information to Variety, about 1.9 million households tuned in. “Denis [Villeneuve] made an extraordinary movie and fans are enthusiastically appreciating it and spreading excellent word of mouth,” beamed Warner Bros. exec Jeff Goldstein.

Can we have a Dune sequel now?

Dune only adapts the first half of Herbert’s novel about a young man — Paul Atreides, played by Timothée Chalamet — who comes to the desert planet of Arrakis with his family and gets caught up in a destiny beyond anything he could have imagined…or wanted, in some cases. The movie ends in the middle of the story, so everyone is expecting another film…except Warner Bros. hasn’t announced it.

True, they’ve done everything but formally announce it, but the longer we go without an announcement the more nervous I get. The people like it! Return to Dune!

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