Dune 2 Opening Weekend Thread [3/01/24 -3/03/24] [82.5m DOM OW]

[AniNate]

1 minute ago, von Kenni said:

needs to be a big enough upside to justify the risky investment of time and money

 

That can often be as simple as the movie being damn good

[Juliet]

22 minutes ago, Noctis said:

Messiah will happen, as Part 2 will be a big enough hit to justify it. 

 

Will Messiah just be one film, though? I heard

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Florence Pugh signed on because Villneuve told her that she would be one of the major characters in that one.

 

It will be one. Its kind of funny with the recent comments but Messiah is all about plotting rather than big battles. Its wordy. 

Sci Fi channel merged Messiah with Children of Dune so that sort of tells you what you miss if you take a knife to it. I think they'll actually add more to it. For Irulan in particular considering how her character is set up here.

[MysteryMovieMogul]

1 minute ago, AniNate said:

 

That can often be as simple as the movie being damn good

Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part 1 had this issue last year though. Got great reviews, but did worse at the domestic box office than Indiana Jones. Came to digital, Blu-ray, and streaming with little to no fanfare.

 

Studio (partially due to strikes, partially due to the reception of Part 1) decides to go back to the drawing board a bit, starting out by changing the title of Part 2, as well as removing "Part 1" from the title of Part 1.

[Dreadnought]

I think I'll just have to accept that mine is very much the minority opinion - part 2 fell pretty flat for me.  I still remember buzzing after watching Two Towers and ROTK in theaters and I feel sorry for those who were too young to have that experience. 

Edited March 2 by Dreadnought

[Avatree]

4 minutes ago, Dreadnought said:

I think I'll just have to accept that mine is very much the minority opinion - part 2 fell pretty flat for me.  I still remember buzzing after watching Two Towers and ROTK in theaters and I feel sorry for those who were too young to have that experience. 

I really wish I was like 5 years older so I could have had that experience of lord of the rings when they came out. The Goat... THE GOAT!

 

Incidentally I don't think the LOTR comparisons I heard about pre-release did this film any favours. I heard multiple people say this has Return of the King quality battles, and I was waiting and waiting and it never came.

 

 

Edited March 2 by Avatree

[M37]

The number of IPs/brand which have a high enough floor to justify a $150-$200M+ budget has been shrinking as the CBM bubble has burst 

 

Dune has proven to have solid, worldwide appeal. It may not have the upside of something else, but also doesn’t carry the downside risk, which makes a sequel greenlight at least appealing (which doesn’t necessarily mean it actually happens)

[Firepower]

41 minutes ago, Mr Roark said:

the film will be profitable even if it will make $500M but… Messiah is not 100% guaranteed? Okay.

$500M gross against $190M production budget and expensive marketing is a miserable profit, if any profit, sequels to movies with similar gross/budget ratio are usually cancelled or put on shelve till better times. Reception and awards of Part 2 might save Messiah, but that's not a guarantee, it's not a charity, $500M gross would mean general audience doesn't connect to it despite all the praise. Again, IF final gross is gonna be in 500 mln range.

Edited March 2 by Firepower

[JustLurking]

9 minutes ago, Dreadnought said:

I think I'll just have to accept that mine is very much the minority opinion - part 2 fell pretty flat for me.  I still remember buzzing after watching Two Towers and ROTK in theaters and I feel sorry for those who were too young to have that experience. 

Unfortunately I am too young for the Two Towers and ROTK theatrical experience, but watching Dune2 very much had me feeling "so this is what it was like". Just an absolute masterclass as far as I'm concerned. But to each their own.

Edited March 2 by JustLurking

[Firepower]

14 minutes ago, AniNate said:

That can often be as simple as the movie being damn good

Maybe in some alternate pink reality where studios run by charities and not money bags who care only about numbers in their annual reports. I'm still waiting for my Dredd sequel, but it seems money bags don't care about reception alone, to the point producers can't even find anyone willing to fund Judge Dredd TV series.

[Steele131]

Any word on Saturday numbers yet? Or what we should be expecting?

[Steele131]

6 minutes ago, Firepower said:

$500M gross against 190mln production budget and expensive marketing is a miserable profit, if any profit, sequels to movies with similar gross/budget ratio are usually cancelled or put on shelve till better times. Reception and awards of Part 2 might save Messiah, but that's not a guarantee, it's not a charity, $500M gross would mean general audience doesn't connect to it despite all the praise. Again, IF final gross is gonna be in 500 mln range.

It it passes 500M then Messiah will be greenlit, if it’s not already. For a filmmaker like Denis and franchise like Dune sometimes it’s not always about the money. You have a high profile director and a blockbuster that’s getting universal acclaim and will play for Oscars. 

[von Kenni]

11 minutes ago, Firepower said:

$500M gross against 190mln production budget and expensive marketing is a miserable profit, if any profit, sequels to movies with similar gross/budget ratio are usually cancelled or put on shelve till better times. Reception and awards of Part 2 might save Messiah, but that's not a guarantee, it's not a charity, $500M gross would mean general audience doesn't connect to it. Again, IF final gross is gonna be in 500 mln range.

 

Puss in the Boots made $120M profit with $479M WW gross and had $110M production budget with a sizable $130M marketing budget. With a quick and dirty way, we can increase that budget to $190M and discount from the profits and resulting in $40M profit. Tieing up $190M capital for about 1-2 years (production costs are paid when they actualize) and spending $130M mostly at the last sprint would mean about 10-15% annualized ROI.

 

...and again, the most likely budget is around $150-155M after rebates which makes it even far more profitable.

Edited March 2 by von Kenni
rebates

[Firepower]

Just now, Steele131 said:

It it passes 500M then Messiah will be greenlit, if it’s not already. For a filmmaker like Denis and franchise like Dune sometimes it’s not always about the money. You have a high profile director and a blockbuster that’s getting universal acclaim and will play for Oscars. 

Acclaim and awards didn't save Blade Runner 2049 which was supposed to get a sequel. While you can argue Blade Runner 2049 was a big money loser and Dune Part 2 will at least break even, money still influence decisions of traditional studios, they don't have Apple's money hole.

[MysteryMovieMogul]

3 minutes ago, Firepower said:

Acclaim and awards didn't save Blade Runner 2049 which was supposed to get a sequel. While you can argue Blade Runner 2049 was a big money loser and Dune Part 2 will at least break even, money still influence decisions of traditional studios, they don't have Apple's money hole.

And then we have Tron: Ares, a sequel to a film that didn't break even 14 years ago. 

[Firepower]

9 minutes ago, von Kenni said:

Puss in the Boots made $120M profit with $479M WW gross and had $110M production budget with a sizable $130M marketing budget. With a quick and dirty way, we can increase that budget to $190M and discount from the profits and resulting in $40M profit. Tieing up $190M capital for about 1-2 years (production costs are paid when they actualize) and spending $130M mostly at the last sprint would mean about 10-15% annualized ROI.

$40M profit killed two sequels to The Amazing Spider-Man 2. I'm absolutely sure WB spent more on Dune's marketing than Universal on Puss in the Boots 2 one.

 

3 minutes ago, MysteryMovieMogul said:

And then we have Tron: Ares, a sequel to a film that didn't break even 14 years ago. 

Because it's not a sequel, it's a soft-reboot and it took 14 years to get greenlight, they cancelled a direct sequel from the same director and with the same cast precisely because it wasn't a financial success.

Edited March 2 by Firepower

[MysteryMovieMogul]

2 minutes ago, Firepower said:

$40M profit killed two sequels to The Amazing Spider-Man 2. I'm absolutely sure WB spent more on Dune's marketing than Universal on Puss in the Boots 2 one.

 

The Dune 2 cast was on every late night talk show last week, it felt like. It was honestly a bit much. I enjoy the cast, but there is such a thing as too much promotion.

[AniNate]

I don't recall any serious sequel rumblings re Blade Runner and the movie was a complete narrative as it was, but the fact that Denis was still given the go ahead to make a multipart sci-fi epic afterward when the previous attempt at adapting that also bombed was indication that its box office performance wasn't held against him, and there is still evidently interest in continuing the IP given this new Blade Runner TV series in the works.

[Bob Train]

28 minutes ago, Firepower said:

$500M gross against $190M production budget and expensive marketing is a miserable profit, if any profit, sequels to movies with similar gross/budget ratio are usually cancelled or put on shelve till better times. Reception and awards of Part 2 might save Messiah, but that's not a guarantee, it's not a charity, $500M gross would mean general audience doesn't connect to it despite all the praise. Again, IF final gross is gonna be in 500 mln range.

There's nothing to indicate that it will only make $500m. It is set for $175-$180m WW opening according to latest estimates. Overseas it is playing best in mature, leggy markets like Germany, France, that will backload it, and WOM is great everywhere. PS are very strong in China where it hasn't opened yet so I think a WW total close to $700m is likely. 

[JustLurking]

10 minutes ago, Firepower said:

$40M profit killed two sequels to The Amazing Spider-Man 2. I'm absolutely sure WB spent more on Dune's marketing than Universal on Puss in the Boots 2 one.

 

Because it's not a sequel, it's a soft-reboot and it took 14 years to get greenlight, they cancelled a direct sequel from the same director and with the same cast precisely because it wasn't a financial success.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was a panned film disliked by both audiences and critics. The comparisons are stretching insanely thin here.

[von Kenni]

5 minutes ago, Firepower said:

$40M profit killed two sequels to The Amazing Spider-Man 2. I'm absolutely sure WB spent more on Dune's marketing than Universal on Puss in the Boots 2 one.

 

Because it's not a sequel, it's a soft-reboot and it took 14 years, they cancelled a direct sequel from the same director and with the same cast precisely because it wasn't a financial success.

 

Sequels to The Amazing Spider-Man 2 wasn't killed by lack of profit but Studio head's personal anger toward Garfield when he felt disrespected and didn't do the promotional/attendance stuff that the Studio head personally told him to do. This is widely reported and revealed afterward.

 

Dune 1 marketing budget was somewhere around $110-120M if I remember from some sources. Here is just +-$100M. That said the budget was even bloated at least $10-20M or more because they did almost two campaigns. First one prior to the pandemic and later again because the pandemic screwed the first planned release.

 

You can also use The Batman marketing budget of $135M from the same studio as a reference in 2022.

 

You're just grabbing on straws man but keep going I'm interested to see what you find next..though might not care to continue this myself.