eridani

I've tried using the teaser view numbers to predict some kind of figure for Avatar 2 opening... but it's damn hard. 148 million views is pretty clear. The first weekend box office numbers, before the teaser went online is also fairly easy to calculate, roughly 18 million tickets sold in the US and another 35 million, give or take, in the rest of the world. So roughly 200 million views. Assuming these other trailers did go online before they hit the theaters, some comparison can be made. 335 million for spiderman NWH teaser in its first 24 hours. 209 million for thor LaT. Sadly, we don't know how much will Thor open to. All the other trailer numbers are not that recent, unfortunately, so comparison must be done carefully. Lion King teaser did 224 million views, 3.5 years ago. Avengers Endgame trailer had 268 million, but that was 3 years ago now. its first ever teaser was 3 and half year ago and did 289 million. Of course, going too much in the past is tricky as not as many people around the world had super quick access to the trailer. So even those figures likely need to be somehow adjusted. Avengers Infinity war first teaser did 230 million, back in november 2017. That too would likely need to be adjusted, even more. It teaser trailer seems to be a bit more comparable. It did 197 million back in march 2017. We have very old example SW: force awakens, which shows how a teaser can be improved upon in view numbers when a trailer comes. teaser did 55 million views, a full year before the movie came out. first trailer did 88 million. then last trailer, just 2 months before the premiere did 112 million views. So... one MIGHT try to say that avatar 2 will do: 56% of Spiderman NWH opening weekend. or that it will do a bit over 100% of It's opening weekend. or that it will do 100% of Lion King's opening weekend. But there are also examples such as Mulan. Its teaser trailer did 175 million views. Yet its international box office was abysmal. Some could say "but that's because it didn't get a theater release in the US" but there are plenty of movies which first start their run abroad and rake in a bunch of money before the US release happens. Yet Mulan did only 67 million abroad. Still, if we disregard Mulan (not sure if a wise move though) then the above four extrapolations suggest Avatar 2 might take in 192 million or Lion King's 192 million 130-ish million of It's 123 million 146 million of Spider-Man's 260 million If one adjust the results for inflation, then Lion King did 217 million and It did 144 million. Even Spiderman did 270 million. So roughly 160 million or 217 million or 152 million? It might play a little bit more like Lion King, with family audiences. But then again, it could also play a bit more like regular teenager oriented movies... Without any further trailers it's hard to say. Their numbers will show the trajectory. If they manage to increase view numbers like SW: TFA, then Avatar 2 is sure to be a massive hit. But if they follow the Avengers trajectory, where teaser trailers had more views than final trailers - then the figures above - 150 to 200-ish million are the best opening there is. Of course, there's much more to any movie's performance than just the opening weekend. If Avatar 2 manages to play out like the first one, with tiny drops, then who knows. But that'll really depend on A) movie's quality and B ) perception of the movie by today's audiences.

If Batman doesn't get a release date in China I'll be inclined to think the issue is one of social policy within China. Basically, that superhero fare has been deemed unfit for mass consumption due to perceived effects on the Chinese youth.

Has Dune perhaps been removed from the US cinemas? Is that why there's no Dune mentioned even for Weekend BO? Or has WB just stopped reporting numbers for it? Which would be senseless, why suddenly pick a random movie and stop reporting numbers, even the weekend ones?

Eh, it's just that new philosophy in soundtracks that many people, myself included, dislike. For some time now, soundtracks have become soundscapes. These walls of sound background, only made with instruments and voices. There's there to pump up the atmosphere but god forbid if they're allowed to call attention to themselves. Whereas just as little as 20 years ago music in movies was still about self-sufficient melody carrying at least a few of key tracks in each soundtrack. Zimmer too went through the same change. His music from 1990s is great and focused on a clear melody. Then sometime in 2000s he started to shift to the soundscape philosophy. Lately he hasn't had a decent melody in his movies. Perhaps Man of Steel was one of the last ones with a good melody, though he co-composed that with Junkie XL so it's hard to tell which part is his.

Please try to leave politics out of movie production and box office discussions if you can. Thank you.

China is not on track to break 40 million. So far the earnings have been, in millions USD per days of release: 6.11, 9.11, 6.56 (first weekend) 2.0, 1.6, 1.5, 1.3 (first mon through thursday week) 1, 2.27, (second weekend). Sunday is not in yet but judging by past experience it should be around 1.6 million. future days should yield only minimal grosses. Around 0.3 to 0.5 per day. Maybe the saturday of 6th of November could reach 0.7 million or so. And any following week after that will be quite small. Chinese box office simply works that way, for most movies. Drops are huge and everything is frontloaded.

Evidently the pandemic has shifted some of the BO earnings to Home Entertainment earnings. Likewise, the day and date release shifted some of further BO earnings to Home Entertainment. To roughly illustrate: if without day and date and pandemic a movie would earn 35% from BO and 65% from various other sources post theater release, a movie which does suffer both part of its audience sitting it out and going to theaters and having another part of the audience that prefer the comfort of a SVOD release - then such movie nowadays can get away with fairly small BO earnings and still be successful. Even if it earns, say, 300 million in theaters, meaning some 140 million of theater rentals, but if those 140 million represent just 25% of its total earnings - then a 560 million of total earnings is nothing to scoff at. Accounting for both production budget, overhead, theater release and marketing, home entertainment release and marketing - it's still likely a 170 million production would in the end be in the red.

Well I for one am pleasantly surprised by greenlighting of part 2. Two years ago it seemed like a distant chance to me. As good results in Europe followed this September that became quite a plausible outcome. And as decent results in US and other markets came cam this past week we finally saw the money is there to warrant part 2. What it all also suggests is two more things: 1) That Dune's monetary injection and popularity injection into HBO Max is worth quite a bit to WB. Probably equivalent to tens of millions of profit from BO rentals. (rather than just millions) and 2) That at least part of the effect of the Pandemic causing people to stay out of the cinemas is compensated by those same people paying for seeing those same movies later on via pay per view and other streaming/home entertainment options. So movies of the last 2 years probably have a noticeable uptick in home entertainment earnings, which helps even out drops in BO earnings.

Based on this weekend's openings and mostly BR2049 like legs/openings, I am getting 85-90 million for the combined markets of UK, Japan, Brazil, Mexico, South Korea, China and Aus/NZ Other countries that have opened this week, using real Dune openings and BR2049 legs' multipliers may be on track to amass 14.5 million, give or take a million. Using some average HBOmax day and date like legs of x2.5 I am projecting 100 million for North America. Naturally, there's some margin of error involved in there but we'll know better next weekend. And, of course, countries that had openings from September through October 17th seem to be on course to close with some 122 million. Give or take a million. Grand total would thus be 320 to 330 million. At this point 350 seems quite unlikely. Unless there's some unexpected and unprecedented boost/holdover in China and/or surprisingly good legs in US and other markets.

So... some 115-ish million RMB for whole opening 3-day weekend? Would that be a justified estimate? 18 million USD?

Hm, but is it nearly every movie during the last 12 months? And what constitutes poor legs? Less than x3 mulitplier? Less than x2.5? WW1984 2.8 multiplier GvK had 3.2 multiplier Mortal Kombat had just 1.8 Space Jam 2.3 Suicide Squad 2.1 Cry Macho 2.3 Malignant 2.5 Which movie/s out of these should be best compared to Dune?

Shouldn't it be exact to the day and hour? There are two issues here: going hours early before any preview. And HBO is available to its maximum efficiency right away. While the Thursday previews will be shown in a smaller number of venues than the proper release on Friday. My personal point is - it'd be nice to know what sort of arrangement does HBO and production company have. HBO release detracts from the box office to some degree. Thus it had to be compensated. I'm sure all of that was negotiated beforehand. But what are the percentages there? Media mentioned Warners put up 25% of the production money. In a normal world, that might suggest warners get 25% of the box office. But due to HBO thing the whole arrangement may've been different. Did they negotiate to get 20% of the box office? Is HBO worth a 5% difference? Or more? Or less? Those are the details that interest me but sadly, I doubt the general public will ever know such details... I guess the other possible arrangement is that Warners for its 25% get total NA market. So then its totally up to them if they want to do more of a HBO release or more of a theater release. It's gonna impact their bottom line. For that to work, though, all other overseas earnings would then have to go to the people who forked out the remaining 75% of the money. And even so, I'd say that'd be an unwise deal for those who are not Warners as it was always evident the NA would be more than a quarter of total worldwide market for Dune.

So Warners is intent to outplay the theatrical release by any means necessary. Now it pushed the HBO release by some half a day. It will start on Thursday at 3PM EST / 6PM PDT. Does that mean HBO forked out some additional money to the film's production company to compensate it for such a move? Who knows. But if it didn't, there may be some lawsuits incoming...

Isn't WB a minority stakeholder in Dune production/financing anyway? There were articles that WB put up 25% of the budget, while Legendary Entertainment supplied 75% of the budget. The easiest thing for WB, if they wanted out, would be to sell their minority stake in a possible sequel to someone else or to Legendary. I do believe it's Legendary Entertainment, with so much money invested, that's really the party responsible for pushing on forward with any possible sequel.

300 million is very likely at this point, I'd say. With 350 still plausible, though very much dependent on NA and China performance. There should be at least 10 to 15 more million to squeeze out of the markets that it's currently playing in, for 140-145 mill in total. Out of the medium size markets still not opened in, something in between of Alita and BR2049 numbers could be expected. 20 million for UK, 9 million for Australia, 8 mill for Japan, 5 million each for South Korea, Brazil and Mexico. So that's 193-198 million. NA seems to be on track to open around 35-ish million. Assuming same legs as WW1984 that'd translate to 98 million. (HBOMax factor being similar, though Dune has been getting better reviews than WW84) China presales are tracking a bit above BR2049 but not by much. But even with a bad case prognosis of just 15 million the whole tally estimate stands at 305-310 million, give or take. If NA manages to open in the 40-ish mill range or if legs are even slightly better than WW1984, and if China manages to reach just low 20s, then the tally might get close to 350. Of course, Alita was generally seen as an inadequate result even with a 400 million worldwide gross on a similar production budget (and perhaps even smaller marketing budget) so...

So can someone well versed in reading all these comparisons and presale figures make a range of predictions for dune? Like opening to 30-40 million, leading to finall domestic tally of 90-120 million. Or whatever other number.

Just wanted to say thanks for all the input. Especially the Sony data link. It teaches you a lot about movie income and expenses and I can recommend it to everyone interested in the topic. Also I found the THR video you mentione; thanks for that reference as well! "There is a THR roundtable with studio runners " It was actually released in the fall of 2014, here's the link for those who want to watch it. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/executive-roundtable-6-studio-heads-748102/ Bottom line is - movie expenses are usually far bigger than the simple budget (and even marketing) but at the same time - movie earnings are also bigger than people usually think or what would media articles imply. Especially the TV rights (and now SVOD probably taking a lot of TV rights earnings away) - those are possibly among the biggest revenue categories for any movie.

Let me see if I understood what various people are reading out of these comparisons for dune opening weekend, in these last several posts. 60 percent of Shang chi opening? Slightly higher than Godzilla v Kong 5 day opening? Slightly lower than bond opening? If those are valid, would it also point towards an 40 to 50 million dollar opening weekend for dune? (Previews included)

I got so many questions here. Don't know if you've got the time to engage in a discussion. but here goes I understand that 106m is 53% of the 200m. But what does a 55m release here means in the context of netting 51m? It can't possibly mean that the movie will get 93% return to the studio, can it? If so - how?!? Let me see if I understand this. 50m return out of 200m is the often quoted 25% that studios retain from china. Is that true? But what does "6 million release will net you 44m" mean? I am completely confused by that. How can 6 million yield 44m? What is does then 6 mil refer to then? what does 44m refer to? Is then the retention rate in those tables the percentage of money retained by the studio out of total BO revenues? But what is profit margin then? those percentages are what in relation to what? I don't understand how profit margin can fluctuate so much depending on different movies and different markets. Isn't profit margin whatever is left after expenses are substracted from revenues on the level of entire movie/marketing production? If so, how can it even be calculated to individual markets? OR does profit margin there means there are territory specific expenses (those could only be distribution and marketing?) which are partly nearly fixed (distribution) and partly variable (marketing can differ a lot between 5th wave and spectre) and then if someone invests a million into marketing for 5th wave, and the movie does 2 million in BO revenue, out of which the studio gets 0.8 million back due to its share - then the studio is in fact in negative profit margin because locally it spent more? Or do those profit margins somehow even add portion of the production budget as well per each territory? But if yes, how does one even calculate how much of production budget should be covered by each territory? That seems completely arbitrary. Does the above mean that in most countries around the world the studio gets a big say in how the local territory marketing and distribution is handled - but studio also gets some direct, additional expenses in each of those territories? But in china, the studio doesn't get much say, but it also has very small additional expenses? Though, obviously it still has some expenses. If, on bond example, retention cut is 25% and profit is 21%. I assume the 21 percent is not out of 25 but that is it 21 out of original 100 percent? So basically 4% difference (out of total worth of BO returns) is spent by studio on distribution and marketing costs? Is that correct?

I don't want to bore everyone but here's another detail which goes into Dune's favor. China's Box office gives just 25% to the studio. In most cases that'd be bad for the producer. But who's the majority producer of Dune? Legendary entertainment. (75% produced by it) Owned by Wanda Group. Which, coincidently, is also owner of Wanda Cinemas in China, which is the biggest Chinese cinema chain with some 4000 screens. So Wanda group, parent of Legendary, is going to get some extra profit from the Chinese market, which most of other Hollywood movies would not otherwise see.

I do hope I am not the one perceived as being negative. I am mostly interested in figuring out how do distribution and earnings work. I don't think various media write ups of percentages can be believed blindly, as the figures do not mesh with what actual people in the business told me. When it comes to the case of Dune, one must not forget the home entertainment. It's a huge money maker. Let's take the example of WW1984. Another WB movie which was released on HBO and in theaters. Probably more familiar to the US audience than Dune, but with internnational home entertainment sector that might even out. WW1984 earned 28 million dollars in physical disc sales in the US. I don't know what percentage goes to the studio, but even if it's just 50%, it's decent money. According to DEG, digital sales and rentals are some 250% of phyiscal sales figures for 2019. And I would think that studio gets more than 50% for digital sales. Easily 70%. But it'd be nice if someone could provide actual percentages. But that's just the US. how much more home entertainment is there outside the US? Just the physical sales are 1.3 billion in US versus 8.8 billion total sales. I would guess that digital Home Entertainment sales have the US a bit greater percentage of the worldwide HE sales. But it should still be several times over. Importnat to note - those digital sales and rentals do not include SVOD. Though, SVOD portion of earnings is notoriously hard to find. I can only very roughly assess it - judging by those half a billion deals for 5 years of tv show rights, and judging by that recent sony-netflix deal where sony will give its movies 2022-2026 to netflix for one billion dollars (but sony still gets to sell their movies thru traditional digital home entertainment). Knowing the number and earnings ratio of sony's movies, it pretty much means that a big hit that does 200-300 million in the US box office can be valued at several tens of millions in such a sale to a major SVOD service. Smaller movies that do, say, 100 million would be sold for less, possibly as little as 10 million. So, if Dune does just half the home entertainment business in the US as WW1984 did - that's 14 million phyiscal sales (of which 7 goes to studio) on top of 35 million digital sales (of which 25 goes to the studio). And then on top of those 32 million there should be at least a few times that figure for overseas physical and digital sales profit to the studio. We're very likely over 100 million there. Plus SVOD sale (or equivalent value to Warner/HBO) of at least 10 million. So... That's 110+ million of pure profit guaranteed. Even if Dune marketing budget is 100 million, and if its prudction budget is 165 million, that'd suggest that the box office pure profits need to cover "just" 155 million worldwide. That certainly seems doable, as the BO earnings seem pretty sure to go over 350 million. And long term sales/rentals and tv rights over the years would still add to the overall figure.

Recently I happened to have an interesting conversation with a person working in one of EU countries' local distributors. Explaining me how the box office share is really done. Lets say a movie does 100 monetary units at the box office. A certain percentage, which is in this particular case 60%, but it could be slightly different at other times as it's being negotiatied on a yearly basis or even per movie basis - and it of course differs a little in other countries (so maybe 50%?) goes to the movie theaters. It is justified by the fact those movie theaters have to be built, invested in, various new projectors bought (digital conversion, 3d etc) and have a fair number of employees working. Out of the remaining 40 monetary units, the local distributor has managed to negotiate around 12 monetary units for itself. The rest, 28 monetary units, goes to the hollywood studio. But the studio also then reimburses the local distributor for the marketing costs. Basically, the local distributor, before the movie comes out, says what they believe the movie may make and what sort of marketing budget they need. The hollywood studio decides how much marketing money is actually worth spending. The local distributor spends that much marketing money and is in the end reimbursed by the Hollywood studio by said amount. So what does that mean? It means I was wrong in my previous calculation about Dune breaking even point. Even if we assume that within the US the studio will indeed get over 50 percent or even 60 percent - the overseas share of the studio is likely to be far less than usually quoted in the media 45%. In fact, it may be just 30% or so on the average, as I don't believe the studio is likely to be able to negotiate much better terms in other countries. It also means that the local distributors (meaning distributors outside the NA) are NOT paying for the marketing themselves. But the hollywood studio is, in fact, covering worldwide marketing costs. In my previous post, i went with the following Box office Dune projections Which gives us the grand total of: 40 to 100 for china 50 to 100 for NA 70 for HK/SK/TW/JP/Aus 221 for rest of the world. So we're at 380 to 490 million. Of course, not all countries pay out equally. Overseas distirbutor cut is closer to 55%. China is at 75%. Domestic theaters are closer to 45%. 27.5 to 55 for NA 10 to 25 for China 131 for rest of the world. For a total of 169 to 211 million. First of all, i made a simple math error. Even with 45% going to the studio, that should've been 100 million and not 131 million. But, as I've said now, the distributor cuts are likely to work differently! So even if domestically the studio will take 55%, overseas it will not take 45% but it will take maybe 30%. We will assume china stays at 25%, as sometimes reported in the media. So suddenly the cuts are as follows: 27.5 to 55 million for North America 10 to 25 for China and 66 million for the rest of the world. So now the total is 104 to 146 million of studio BO revenue, to go against expenses. And to make it worse, studio not only pays for 165 million budget but also for worldwide marketing expenses. So those are SURE to be higher than some middle of the road 45 million figure I went with in my previous post. But even if they're just 50% higher (considering we're adding the rest of the world even that seems low) and we're at 65-70 million for marketing suddenly the figure to beat becomes at least 230 million dollars. Basically, the total projected box office return is on track to cover only half of those expenses. And the rest will have to be covered by HBO income (maybe the producer Legendary in the end managed to get a contract with WB/Time warner to get a piece of that as compensation for unilateral day and date decision. who knows?) and by various later digital/rental/streaming and tv rights to trickle in over the years.

Dune could theoretically be in the black, depending on exact expenses and distribution of income even just on the box office sales, not counting the HBO factor or any later streaming/digital/disc rental/tv rights. After 3 weekends it did 66.4 million in five big territories of France, Russia, Germany, Spain and Italy. Lets take BR2049 for comparison. After 3 weekends that film did 39.4 million. Total BR2049 run in those five territories was 48.7 million. So at the very least, even not accounting for longer legs, Dune should do 22% better than the current result. So 81 million in those countries. Of course, longer legs are evident so even the future weeks should enjoy them. 85 or even close to 90 million is plausible in those 5 countries. Those 5 countries are somewhat representative of the rest of the world, without NA and East Asia/Australia countries. Now lets take Taiwan and Kong Kong. As representative of East Asia and Australia. There, after 3 weeks Dune has 3.7 million in Taiwan and 2.6 million in HK. While BR2049 is somewhat indicative, I will use another film for those markets for comparison. Godzilla v kong. While godzilla v kong performned abysmally in europe, and Dune is far, far outstripping it. GvK did well in Asia. I don't think using only GvK as being fair, as it's a different type of movie. But Dune is being marketed as dumb SF spectacle in Asia, it is marketed by Legendary affiliates in China (just with GvK) So for China and SK and Japan something in between of BR2049 and GvK results might be comparable. While Australia might skew more towards BR2049 numbers than GvK numbers. We are already seeing that Dune is playing differently in Taiwain and HK than in the case of BR2049. BR had total of 1.8 million in Taiwain and 1.35 million in HK. So even after 3 weeks, it's doing twice as good. Of course, GvK is a different beast so Dune probably won't reach GvKs 12.6 million in Taiwan though it might reach GvK's 4.5 million in HK. Still, legs are great there. in HK, its second weeked was a bit higher than the first. In taiwan, it opened to 1.3 million and now after 3rd weekend it's at 3.7 million. At its current trajectory it should be able to squeeze out a further million. so 4.7 million or so. HK, as it's dropping VERY little, it an unknown. It should reach 4 million. But it could also go over 5 million. As far as i understand, legendary's affiliates are also distributing the film in HK, just as they will do in China. Onto South Korea. total Gvk run there was 6 million. BR2049 run was 2.4 million. Japan had Gvk run at 16.3 million. BR run at 10.5 million. Australia had Gvk at 21.4 million. BR at 10.2 million. Given how Dune is performing in 5 european countries (on course to do 75% better) and how it's performing in HK and Taiwan (100% better) compared to BR2049 I'd say minimum run in South Korea should be 4.8 million. Japan with 20 million. China with at least 27 million (2,5 times over BR in Taiwan) And australia with 20 million. Though the GvK factor might also be seen in SK, Japan and even more likely in China. (sort of mimicking to some extent the currently visible HK Dune performance) Now, doubling Gvk in those countries would lead to 12 million in SK, 32 million in Japan and 43 million in Australia for Dune. Not to mention that GvK did 188 million in China. Of course such figures are unatainable. So Dune will likely NOT reach those figures. But even reaching half way between BR2049 and Gvk figures would yield: 8 million for SK 26 million for Japan 31 million for Australia (though likely less, as it's more inclined to play out like BR2049) China is a big wildcard and the BR's equivalent performance adjusted of 23 million is probably the very bottom. But what if it plays out more like in Hong Kong? Then a 3.5 times bigger figure over BR2049 might be possible. That might be 38 million. And that's not even considering at least a partial comparison with GvK. So... I'd say China is really impossible to predict but anything from 40 million to 100 million would not surprise me. BR2049 did 129.4 in all the countries without north america, china, hk, taiwan, australia, sk, japan. in russia, germany, france, italy and spain it did 48.7 million. So to get from the current 5-coutnry prediction of 85 million for Dune, to the rest of the world (without NA and asia) we need to adjust the gross by 2.6 times. So gross in all the coutnries without NA and asia for dune is then 221 million. As said, the australia/east asia countries might add: 9 million in HK/Taiwan 8 million for SK 26 million for Japan 25? million for Australia and anything from 40 to 100 million in china. Which leaves US and Canada. But given the HBO factor, it's impossible to say how much it's gonna earn there. Will HBO and pandemic take half its theoretical earnings? BR49 did 92 million. So if that was the benchmark half of that would be just 46 million. But is Interstellar a better fit? Or GvK? Who knows. Arrival? Still, at this point I have to have a number so i'll go with 50 to 100 million. Which gives us the grand total of: 40 to 100 for china 50 to 100 for NA 70 for HK/SK/TW/JP/Aus 221 for rest of the world. So we're at 380 to 490 million. Of course, not all countries pay out equally. Overseas distirbutor cut is closer to 55%. China is at 75%. Domestic theaters are closer to 45%. 27.5 to 55 for NA 10 to 25 for China 131 for rest of the world. For a total of 169 to 211 million. Now, if the dune production budget is indeed 165 million and if its marketing buget is not over 45 million, then Dune has some chance of going into profit from BO alone. Of course, that's the high end of the estimate. Plus it assumes a fairly small marketing budget. So it's more likely BO alone will not cover all the expenses. On the other hand, HBO is worth a lot. I don't know what the original deal betwen WB and lengendary was - perhaps WB was to retain complete NA BO sales in return for its 25% of the budget (and likely all of the marketing costs) Now, IF legendary isn't paying for marketing and if it's paying only for 75% of the 165 million budget and getting to retain all BO sales outside NA, then we're at 124 million of expense versus 141 million to 156 million of profit. Of course, by that logic the WB might be getting the shaft at having to fork out possibly 90+ million for production/marketing. While retaining 55% of the NA box office and nearly 100% of HBO sales. So depending on how many new subscribers HBO will see - it may work out for WB as well. It's pretty close to breaking even, i'd say, with BO and HBO alone. But will the 10% or 20% of profit within a year be enough for the investors to greenlight part 2 - is another matter.

While Dune part 2 may well be greenlit very soon, I am not sure that the numbers we're seeing now are actually suggestive of a 100% certain approval on the sequel production. If we assume that the rumored 165 million production budget is true, we also have to add a marketing and distribution budget. We've no idea how much that costs. For some of the huge titles in the past, such budgets could reach $150 or even $200 million. On top of the production budget. Even some of the cheaper movies, like a $30 million production budget horrors would sometimes spend more on marketing, like $50 million on top. So, anything from $50 million to over $100 million for marketing of Dune seems plausible. But if anyone has any better guesses or, even better, accounts of promo campaigns in their countries - that'd be great. Have you seen a heavy promo push online? Lots of internet ads? TV ads? How often? But even that is besides the point as most of the marketing costs are made within the US - where the real promo push may yet to start. Western Europe/Russia/some Asian countries seems to be on track for a 120 million total tally. If mainland China does similarly to how Taiwan/HK are doing then China might do some 30 million more. If the rest of the world (without NA) does similarly to how Euro region did, that might add another 150 million so far. Then we have US/Canada. Due to HBO max same day release, it's impossible to predict that market. Without it, 100 mil would be more or less guaranteed. Even 150 possible. But with HBO's competition - who's to say. It could be as low as 50 million. It could theoretically reach even a 100 million. But then we have to compare the expenses: lets say 215 to 265 million - to profit, once local distributors and cinemas are taken care of. China takes 75% of the profits. Leaving 7.5 million in profits. Heck, even if china somehow does a 100 million in total, profits will be just 25 million. Countries outside of the NA usually take 50 to 55%. So that could be another 130 million in profits. NA does take a bit more in profits but still, not that much more, leaving theatre owners some 40 to 45%. If Dune does 75 million in NA, that's something like 43 million. So overall total, without taxes though, is 180 to 200 million, depending how well China does. What sort of subscription increases does HBO max need to see due to Dune that Warners say it was equvalent of more millions of earnings is impossible to say. I guess a few tens of millions are likely there. Then there are various other digital sales and rentals. And perhaps even still a bit of a disc market. And tv rights. (not sure if i saw any merch though) those can and very likely will add another few tens of millions of pure profit - but that will happen over the years, not within the next few months. So, while Dune part 1 does seem to be heading to breaking even, I'm not sure we have enough data yet to say that it's such a success that investors will say "Oh, that's a great return on my investment! We'll fork over another 200 million right away". Because it's not enough to say to the investor - you'll get your money back. For sure. If not now then in 5 years. What the investor wants to hear is: You'll get at least 30% of profit on your investment, within 3 years. (I am illustrating the point, of course. Exact figures may differ) But even greater legs than shown now, leading to 150 million in Europe/Russia plus a surprise in China, plus a 100 million in BO in north America - yeah if all those happen - then part 2 might very well be greenlit just before the end of the year.

It seems I have to correct myself. I previously said google trends aren't in favor of Dune, compared to Blade Runner. But It seems I did the search wrong, with searching for terms for one and topics for other. Now when i am careful to search for Dune movie and Blade runner movie (and Alita movie for comparison) i get these results: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today 5-y&q=blade runner movie,Dune movie,alita movie Years prior to BR2049 movie search frequency was between 1:1 and 1:3 in favor of Dune. Alita was basically nowhere to be found. As news of BR2049 filming started coming, BR went up to being equal or somewhat more searched than Dune. before Dune movie news started appearing, the ratios went again to be similar for Dune and BR. Alita, of course, went up near its release date. Actually it went up slightly more than BR ever did when BR2049 went out. Who knows why but maybe Alita fans behave differently from BR fans and search more frequently, per viewer. Anyway, BR2049 had an opening of 33 million and 92 M domestic total. 167 M more overseas. (it had a budget of 150 million, though. I was off by 20 million before) As we know, Alita had equivalent of a 3 day opening of some ~30 million. It's heading for 85 million domestically and another 320 M overseas. So... given the somewhat higher popularity of Dune movie concept compared to Alita movie and BR movie concept, and using the search ratio differences, it may be plausible to expect Dune might open with at least the same kind numbers, on the low side, and perhaps double those numbers on the high side. The high profile cast that's being assembled might also help additionally. I wouldn't be against a 50 million opening myself, though anything over 100 seems just out of the reach. It really depends on the trailers. If it's sold as an action adventure, it might open well. If it's sold as a thinking person's sci fi drama, then it won't do so well. Overseas sales are hard to deduce but even around the world Dune movie concept is more searched than BR or Alita. Though Hong Kong and China results show a more similar search preference for Dune to other concepts. So I wouldn't be surprised if Dune does worse than Alita in China... To sum it up, if somehow budget for Dune could be kept around 100 million, there may be a chance of a sequel. Personally, I don't see how can a quality made Dune movie be made for that kind of money, but that's just me...