Some theater owners — starved for big movies — wish the wealth could be spread out over time: 'That’s a level of overwhelm that doesn’t make sense.'
movie’s poster publicly declaring the Dec. 18 date seemed to solidify the stand-off as actually happening. Which means that at a time when theaters are starving to fill seats, two of the year’s most anticipated films — perhaps'Dune 3' Is "a Thriller," Says Denis Villeneuve as He Launches First Trailer With Zendaya and Robert Pattinson by His Side “Someone’s gotta move,” groaned a representative for one theater chain.
“That’s a level of overwhelm that doesn’t make sense. Especially after the last few years . Anfamously faced off in July 2023 to create the “Barbenheimer” phenomenon, these two epic fantasy franchise sequels have plenty of broad-appeal, male-skewing audience overlap., conversely, only saw a gender split of 60 percent male and 40 percent female with Millennials and Gen Zers making up the majority of the audience. The issue isn’t just a matter of two massive films potentially selling fewer tickets overall because of the presence of the other. . There’s also the issue of other films in the marketplace at the same time . “It will be especially bad for specialty distributors because everybody’s going to free up every screen they have for those two films,” says the exhibitor., however, there is another big issue. And by big, we mean big screens, or Premium Large Format screens, like Imax.would generally be considered the bigger Imax draw anyway given director Denis Villeneuve’s level of sci-fi spectacle and that the film was partially filmed using Imax cameras. But still: observers worry Disney is leaving money on the table by not having Imax screens available. “not getting the PLF is insane,” notes the exhibitor. “It’s free money.” The two films will share the spoils of the non-Imax PLFs, however.‘s Imax exclusivity. While Imax and premium large format screens are in hot demand, there are plenty of regular screens.’s tidy $975 million, Imax accounting for more than $183 million of that). “There will plenty of regular auditoriums left over for both films once the rest of the premium large-format screens ae divide up,” says another exhibitor. “For us, it’s a win-win. We’ll have to huge movies throughout the two weeks of the Christmas holiday.” The week before Christmas is considered a highly coveted release window as moviegoing tends to be high over the holidays going into the new year. As such, it’s also considered the window that can most easily withstand two tentpole movies going head to head — moviegoers generally have enough free time to see more than one film. In pre-pandemic times, six, eight or even 10 movies of different sizes could prosper during the holidays. One element that creates some urgency is the matter of spoilers. Marvel fans generally like to see major new releases quickly to avoid the glut of online spoilers. The first twoand, as such, probably contains plenty of surprises that fans won’t want to be spoiled on either.) was originally planned for May 2025, but then moved its date twice due to the strikes as well as the entire film being reworked after Kang actor Jonathan Majors was fired from the MCU. Marvel even launched a countdown clock to timed to the Dec. 18 date. Both films are expected to be big box office draws. But while the Marvel brand has stumbled lately when judged against its past success, the return of theall famously opened within about a month of each other in 1989). It’s the level of theatrical box office drought — for both exhibitors and studios — that makes thein January, Downey joked about the rivalry: “We both have films opening on Dec 18, and we decided to coin it — we’re thinking ‘Dunesday.’ We’ll see if we’re still friends by then.”Ryan Gosling Says Harrison Ford’s “Not Like Us” After Seeing Him “House Half a Bottle of Advil as a Joke”. We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. // This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the GoogleThe Hollywood Reporter is a part of Penske Media Corporation. © 2026 The Hollywood Reporter, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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