Audiences in the United States will have to wait until October 22 to see Dune, and director Denis Villenueve hopes they’ll opt to see it on the biggest screen possible rather than watching it from the comfort of their own homes on HBO Max, but the sci-fi epic has been playing like gangbusters in many overseas territories since September 15.
Villenueve has outlined in no uncertain terms that any chance of a sequel is dependent on the movie’s box office performance, and he’s already seen Blade Runner 2049 bomb to end any hopes of a continuation. Luckily, the latest adaptation of Frank Herbert’s novel has already brought in $117 million from international markets, with a potentially lucrative Chinese release still to come.
It helps that the sci-fi epic has been winning widespread critical acclaim, with Dune now having been officially Certified Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. At the time of writing, the film boasts an 89% score with almost 100 reviews and counting in the bag, but that number could very easily rise or fall the closer we get to its domestic release.
Dune was being compared to The Lord of the Rings and Star Wars long before anybody had a chance to clap eyes on it, so Warner Bros. will be hoping that translates into similar amounts of critical and commercial success.
