One of the weekends I was most curious about has arrived with the box office as Dune has landed. As we’ve learned through what folks at Warner Bros. have said recently, they’re not looking at just the box office for a sequel, and have basically said everything except formally confirming that they will go forward with it. The film opened with a $40.1 million debut and is, quite frankly, in line with most other films released during this period before even taking into account the HBO Max factor.
Most films opening during this time tend to run in the 40-60 million range so it’s definitely in there, and looking at his last two films, this one is definitely pulling much better. Blade Runner 2049 landed in 2017 with a $32.7 million take while 2016’s Arrival came in at $24 million. There are different calculations at play, but I’ve seen consistently on the tracking sites that they figure we’re at a 60-64% rate of people going to theaters, and with this showing on HBO Max, it would account for a decent chunk of change. Just three separate tickets from my own household went to the HBO Max showing. So, if you figure the median for this time period is around $50 million for films that open in the fall, it’s pretty on track.
The film had a $5.1 million preview on Thursday and that lines up with some other recent films, with No Time to Die at $6.3 million ($55 million weekend) and The Suicide Squad at $44.1 million ($24 million weekend).
The next big release weekend isn’t until November 5th, 2021 with Eternals, but next weekend has Antlers and Last Night in Soho going wide along with A Mouthful of Air and My Hero Academia: World Heroes’ Mission.
| # | Title | Distributor Name | Weekend Total | # of Locs | Loc Avg | Cume Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Dune | Warner Bros. | $40,100,000 | 4,125 | $9,721 | $40,100,000 |
| 2 | Halloween Kills | Universal | $14,500,000 | 3,727 | $3,891 | $73,104,845 |
| 3 | No Time To Die | United Artists Releasing | $11,886,514 | 3,807 | $3,122 | $120,041,599 |
| 4 | Venom: Let There Be Carnage | Sony | $9,100,000 | 3,513 | $2,590 | $181,829,631 |
| 5 | Ron’s Gone Wrong | 20th Century Studios | $7,300,000 | 3,560 | $2,051 | $7,300,000 |
| 6 | Addams Family 2, The | United Artists Releasing | $4,339,247 | 2,907 | $1,493 | $48,318,224 |
| 7 | Last Duel, The | 20th Century Studios | $2,100,000 | 3,065 | $685 | $8,521,918 |
| 8 | Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings | Disney | $2,000,000 | 1,600 | $1,250 | $221,027,831 |
| 9 | French Dispatch, The | Searchlight | $1,300,000 | 52 | $25,000 | $1,300,000 |
| 10 | Free Guy | 20th Century Studios | $258,000 | 380 | $679 | $121,261,540 |
| 11 | Lamb | A24 | $156,905 | 435 | $361 | $2,519,928 |
| 12 | Candyman | Universal | $150,000 | 786 | $191 | $61,027,225 |
© Comscore 2021
