Cmasterclay

That's definitely word of mouth kicking in, I'm seeing much more chatter about the movie today on my feeds than I was in the days leading up to release which is fairly rare for a blockbuster outside the mega leggy breakouts.

I'm a little higher on KFP4 and a little lower on Godzilla Kong, but absolutely looks like it. I think with better legs Dune should get over KFP and Ghostbusters should probably get over Dragons, but it'll be close. With a similar opening Panda will double up Shazam. GvK will finish 30m below Creed to offset, plus Arthur the King won't come near Scream. I actually do think Arthur the King outgrosses Shazam.

It really is outstanding that a movie with this level of themes, scope, and ambition exists on the blockbuster level. I very much liked it. I just think they were either too faithful or too concerned with the "Water of Life" stuff and how it led to the sudden heel turn. I think it would have been a more interesting dramatic choice if Paul was portrayed as either going crazy or actively faking the precog revelations instead of it....being real? I guess my problem with the story if I had to put a finger on it is that it a great parable of false prophets and religious mania, but all the superpowers and magic stuff turns out to be real? I guess that's why the turn didn't make sense to me - he genuinely seems to turn bad because of some magic shit he saw, not because of manipulation or craziness. Would have been better if they relied less on the magic and kind of deconstructed his thought process about using it as a strategy. Who am I to rewrite one of the best selling books of all time and that, but just my stupid message board two cents.

Dune 2 box office shows what every complicated and dark sci-fi and fantasy film needs to cross over to the mainstream - Christopher Walken playing himself.

Most amazing thing is that the movie that got destroyed by discourse around religious warfare and colonialism wasn't Dune but.....the seventh Scream movie?

Pretty awesome number. The reason I was so low on this when we were talking predictions initially is because the "COVID/streaming ruined the last one" narrative seemed like kind of a myth - NTTD and Venom 2 did much better that same month, and it did worse on streaming than many other WB movies that year. There's just no real evidence that it was some megahit in disguise held down by HBO Max. It would have done like 55/140 without day and date, and you gotta figure some of that 140m are casual audiences that would have been turned off by the pace and length. So for it to actually increase to 75+ and maybe 190+....that is really impressive and a product of great marketing and great job hyping it as an event.

Lord of the Rings would not be as strong in today's environment either IMO - we know the changing demographics of audiences, and something that fundamentally white and older and nerdy would do more like low to mid 200s today. That said it's much more of a traditional rousing action movie than Dune with memeable pop culture stuff.

I mean the first one did less on streaming than Mortal Kombat did. We have actual metrics for these things, as unreliable as they sometimes can be. It opened to 40m and was meh on streaming. Opening to 70-75 is actually kind of insane. It was clear there was a hard ceiling. The only thing is the studios could see that ceiling too, so it's just that the studios should have found something bigger to release for the first five months of the damn year.

I'm gonna be honest - if Dune 2 does the same as John Wick 4 opening weekend, which looks likely, it would actually feel like quite a success to me when I think about how many people in real life I know that saw or talked about Wick compared to those who talked about Dune. Dune just has not penetrated my friend groups or networks whatsoever - and I'd like to think I keep a pretty diverse and representative sample that generally leads me well. Lots of online cinephile buzz but very little in Clay's actual social life. Glad the dollars are coming from somewhere!!

That seemed to be the setup, but itould have been great to have even a mild explanation of why he goes from reluctant and conflicted to totally bought in with no gradient.

Huh. Well I liked it alot better than the first, and it was flirting with masterpiece status for awhile - but did they leave a scene on the cutting room floor or something? Paul's heel turn goes from gradual to full blown so fast it barely makes sense. From "we must go to the South" to full blown baddie with one drink that we don't even see the results of? Needed a three minute scene explaining his mindset or something. Without it....I don't know how I felt, honestly.

Tom Hardy sounds like if Conor McGregor was trying to impersonate Woody Allen in this.

For what it's worth I think the overall market is pretty healthy (people are seeing films, nice platform releases and some mini breakouts), I've said for about four months I'm not as negative about the overall health of the box office as the lack of product able to take advantage of it. This is just not a killer slate this year. It happens. And it comes at a precarious time for the box office's long recovery. Dune is a prime example. I agree 70/190 is great for a Dune movie. But the entire January to April box office being built around a movie that grosses that much is not good. The studios shouldn't have left Dune as the number one heavy hitter for these months.

I still think Dune 2 does JW4 numbers pretty much exactly (73/185) and the top six openers of March 2024 outgross March 2023 fwiw. But there's a 500m hole in April, and somehow we are longing for the days of fucking Quantumania because of how weak Jan and Feb were.

I mean last summer I said it was going below The Meg 2, I've been the main one beating the drum that this franchise has a hard ceiling with the general audience. I did begin to buy that the empty marketplace and masterful marketing might pay off to a bigger breakout.

To be clear I predicted 65-70 for months, but that would be shitty relative to the last two weeks of reasonable explanations where it looked more like 75-85 was the range. Box office really needs it to go over John Wick numbers.

Jesus, from talking about 100m to talking under 70m since Monday is pretty wild.

I think it's because it's long as hell and there's no holiday this Thursday/Friday, so pretty much any non-fans are waiting until the weekend days.

I actually do think Garfield has a 200m domestic shot. Fall Guy could do nice enough but when was the last time a movie like that broke out THAT much? Also wasn't everyone saying how great Bullet Train was before release, and then it stunk? At this point I don't have Apes making 100m domestic, and Bad Boys seems a cinch lock to drop from last one without the pent up demand and nostalgia.

When/if Dune 2 doesn't hit 200 we aren't getting a 200m domestic grosser until Inside Out 2....that is woof. I had fun being optimistic for a few weeks and making some nice posts about all the breakout little hits but I feel the old Clay coming back!! (Edit: to be clear this is still much higher than I predicted for Dune 2, it's the state of the year that I'm cynical about)

Frankly a little stunned how little this seems to be breaking out considering the huge trailer views, initial buzz, nostalgia factor, and starved kid's market. I predicted 55/180 in the 2024 predictions and now I hope it just gets over 100.

Looking like the 73/187 that John Wick 4 seems like the realistic domestic target for Dune. I had it at 55/140 last summer so certainly outpunched what I thought!

Godzilla x Kong has no hook at all and is coming out at the end of a busy month, I'm not as low as Shawn but I just don't see why it would do much more than King of the Monsters. The last one was the real megahit waiting to happen and they blew it on day and date streaming release before the fucking vaccine was even available.

Liam Neeson....Leslie Nielsen......if you say them fast enough, enough times, they are the same name.

Shocking that people in this thread that have spent the last year calling me negative on everything are suddenly acting mega disappointed Dune is about to hit 75m-80m. That's an amazing number. Who in the world could have expected those kind of numbers for a Dune movie? It's a miracle these movies both made as much as they did - turned one of the dorkiest, whitest hard sci fi franchises into legit hits. I'm still stunned all these years later it even got greenlit.