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Timothée Chalamet in ‘Dune: Part Two’.
Warner Bros.
The long-awaited Denis Villeneuve Dune: Part Two has had a promising start at the foreign box office, where it grossed $5.2 million on Wednesday in its first 13 markets. Including advances, the current foreign account is $7.6 million.
The Legendary and Warner Bros. film will debut today in a number of additional countries before screening in a total of 71 territories over the weekend. France led on Wednesday with $1.4 million, followed by South Korea with $1.1 million.
Dune 2 premieres everywhere in North America on Friday after Thursday night previews. Tracking suggests it could have a global opening of between $150 million and $175 million, although Warners is being more cautious and suggests closer to $140 million. The box office could use a boost after a bleak start to the winter brought on by a slowdown in product due to strike-related delays.
Overseas, tracking and advance ticket sales suggest the store could start with $85 million. That doesn’t include several key markets, including China, where the store doesn’t open until next weekend, followed by Japan the following week.
Sci-fi can be a difficult genre in some markets, such as parts of Latin America, but Dune 2 could buck this trend based on the first film’s performance and stellar reviews. Its current critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes is 95 percent, compared to 83 percent for the first Dune.
Launched in 2021, Villeneuve Dune grossed more than $402 million at the global box office, a promising figure considering the current pressures of the pandemic and the fact that it premiered on the same day on what was then called HBO Max. The majority, or $325 million, came from the foreign box office.
This time the expectations are much higher.
Legendary made the difficult decision to delay the film’s release from last fall until now so that Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya would be available to publicize the film and help broaden the audience. Both have influence among younger viewers.
The long game, versus opening weekend, will be the true test for director Denis Villeneuve’s sequel in terms of solidifying a new franchise for Legendary.
Villeneuve would like to make one more film, Dune: Messiahwhile Warner has a spin-off series, Dune: Prophecywhich will be out on Max later this year.
The extensive cast includes series newcomers Austin Butler, Florence Pugh and Christopher Walken, joining Rebecca Ferguson, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, Stellan Skarsgard, Dave Bautista and Charlotte Rampling.