“With no disrespect to Timothée Chalamet,” Dune: Part Two probably won’t be delayed
By Dan Selcke
Dune had one of the most impressive casts in modern movies, and Part Two is packing it even more full of big stars: you have Timothée Chalamet as desert messiah Paul Atreides, Zendaya as his love interest Chani, Josh Brolin as his mentor Gurney Halleck, Javier Bardem as Fremen leader Stilgar, Stellan Skarsgård as the villainous Vladimir Harkonnen, Austin Butler and Dave Bautista as his vile nephews, Christopher Walken as the emperor of the damn galaxy and Florence Pugh as his daughter Princess Irulan. And the first movie had Oscar Isaac and Jason Momoa, although their characters won’t be coming back. It’s nuts.
Naturally, Warner Bros. Discovery will want these actors out there promoting the film ahead of its planned November 3 release date. It’s perfect. Chalamet, Zendaya, Butler and Pugh can bring in the young’uns; Bautista, Brolin and Bardem can appeal to the middles and Walken is there for the olds. But with Hollywood actors currently on strike, none of them can say bupkis.
With that in mind, we’ve heard rumors that Dune: Part Two may get delayed until after the strike is over. But IMAX CEO Richard Gelfond doesn’t buy it, reasoning that WBD would lose more by delaying the movie than it would if it just went ahead with the marketing plan it already has, even if the actors won’t be around to help sell the film.
It is “not true” that Dune: Part Two is getting delayed
To be fair, Gelfond doesn’t have official word on this, but he laid out his case during a recent earnings call, per ScreenRant:
"Right. Dune, specifically, I mean, there’s another great movie coming out around in time, which is The Marvels from Marvel, and we can’t play it because we are committed to Dune. So, Dune moves will just go over to The Marvels, and having a Marvel movie as a backup is not the worst position to be in the world. But in terms of Dune, my own opinion is that it’s highly unlikely to move, and it’s an educated opinion, meaning I spent a lot of time on the facts.So, Dune is already in the midst of a marketing campaign. There are trailers out. There’s lots of materials out. They had a big presentation, a lot of the conferences. As a matter of fact, the Denis Villeneuve presented at the IMAX CEO Forum. So, it’s kind of out of the gate. So, if you put it back in the gate, you’ve got to duplicate those expenses at some time in the future of putting it out of the gate. In addition, Dune has a very long run time in IMAX, up to five or six weeks.And it just was fortuitous that there were no other conflicting projects. But if they were to move that to next year and some time, it’s highly unlikely that they would have that amount of run time. And just to remind you, IMAX was about 20% of the growth on Dune 1. And I know there’s a lot of marketing planned on Dune 2.If they move Dune 2, there’s a carrying cost, call it 10% or whatever it is. So, how are they going to make up for that cost across the other incremental costs? The IMAX release is a really important element to their release pattern. And as I said just a minute ago, I don’t think it’s replicable for them to have that kind of run time again.So, when I look at it from their point of view, from a dollars and cents numbers perspective, it just doesn’t make any sense to me that they would move it because — and again, the only reason they would move it is they’d say, the actors strike is going on, and they want to get a premiere and put it on the Tonight Show or whatever they put the actors on, but with no disrespect to Timothée Chalamet, are you going to be able to make up for losing the six-week IMAX release? Are you going to make up the cost of capital and carrying it for a year? Are you going to move it to an uncertain year when you have no idea what it’s going to be put against you when they have virtually no competition right now in the marketplace?It doesn’t really make any sense. When you look at the other movies, I think that’s one of the most compelling not to move. But you could go through all of them and the same logic kind of applies.I think I’ve talked to the distributor at Warner Brothers, they don’t know where that article can go in the press. And I don’t — they’ve certainly told me that that article is not true. So, all I can do is give you my logical perspective on it, but I feel quite strongly that it’s not going to move."
So basically, Dune: Part Two is already committed to a long run in IMAX theaters, which is an important stream of revenue. It’s coming out at a time when there’s relatively little competition. There’s already a marketing campaign on the move. If the movie is delayed, there’s no guarantee the conditions would be as favorable, and WBD would have to spend more money than it already has trying to make them so.
Does this mean that we’ll definitely see Dune: Part Two out on November 3? Not necessarily, although Gelford makes a good case. Hopefully the movie stays the course. And hey, the Hollywood studios could have their cake and eat it too if they just struck a fair deal with the actors and writers currently on strike.
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