“Dune 2”
Starting result stands out from predecessor
Timothée Chalamet storms the cinema charts with “Dune 2”.
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“Dune 2” gets off to a twice as strong start as its predecessor and is the first big box office hit of the young year.
After a few cinema flops like “Argylle” or “Madame Web”, the film year 2024 has its first big hit. “Dune 2” is off to a strong start at the box office. The sequel to the 2021 sci-fi spectacle takes place in the USA grossed $81.5 million in its first weekend. The film with Timothée Chalamet (28) and Zendaya (27) has the best film start of the year. Since Taylor Swift’s (34) concert film “The Eras Tour” in October 2023 (93 million), no film has debuted as successfully.
The second part of the sci-fi saga is not only attracting viewers in the USA. Outside North America, “Dune 2” grossed $97 million. That makes a global total of 178.5 million. And Denis Villeneuve’s (56) work hasn’t even started in the important Asian markets such as China and Japan.
Germany carries according to The Hollywood Reporter contributed the equivalent of $8.4 million to the result – as the third strongest European market after Great Britain and France. According to the industry magazine “Blickpunkt: Film”, 87,000 people in this country saw the film in around 700 cinemas on the first day (February 29, 2024). This marks the best starting day of the year in Germany this year.
Starting result of part 1 almost doubled
With its rocket launch, “Dune 2” can almost double the success of its predecessor in the USA. “Dune” opened 2021 with $41 million. But times were different back then. Because of the corona pandemic, cinemas were repeatedly closed or opened with limited capacity.
The distribution company Warner Bros. released “Dune” in 2021 parallel to its theatrical release on the streaming service HBO Max. Overall, despite all these hurdles, Part 1 grossed $402 million worldwide.
IMAX and Timothée Chalamet: Reasons for the success of “Dune 2”
“Dune 2” is particularly successful in IMAX cinemas and on other large-format screens. You control according to Variety 48 percent of sales in North America. IMAX theaters are sold out for days. After the Corona crisis, there is obviously a special need for event cinema. Variety also cites lead actor Timothée Chalamet as the reason for the success of “Dune 2”, who is currently having momentum after the success of the family film “Wonka”.