\n\tThe biggest fantasy hero battle in Hollywood is shaping up over a release date: Dec. 18. <\/p>\n
\n\tWhile Warner Bros.\u2019 and Legendary\u2019s Dune: Part Three<\/a> and Disney and Marvel\u2019s Avengers: Doomsday<\/a> have officially claimed the same release date for months, this week\u2019s drop of the Dune movie\u2019s poster publicly declaring the Dec. 18 date seemed to solidify the stand-off as actually happening.<\/p>\n \n\tWhich means that at a time when theaters are starving to fill seats, two of the year\u2019s most anticipated films \u2014 perhaps the most anticipated \u2014 are set to arrive on the exact same day. <\/p>\n \n\t\u201cSomeone\u2019s gotta move,\u201d groaned a representative for one theater chain. \u201cThat\u2019s a level of overwhelm that doesn\u2019t make sense. Especially after the last few years [of theaters struggling].\u00a0An Avengers movie and Dune 3 are both sure things.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tUnlike when the gleefully mismatched Barbie and Oppenheimer famously faced off in July 2023 to create the \u201cBarbenheimer\u201d phenomenon, these two epic fantasy franchise sequels have plenty of broad-appeal, male-skewing audience overlap. <\/p>\n \n\t2024\u2019s Dune: Part Two skewed heavily male on its opening weekend at 68 percent, with many tickets buyers well over the age of 25. 2019\u2019s Avengers: Endgame, conversely, only saw a gender split of 60 percent male and 40 percent female with Millennials and Gen Zers making up the majority of the audience.<\/p>\n \n\tThe issue isn\u2019t just a matter of two massive films potentially selling fewer tickets overall because of the presence of the other. (Big fans of both franchises will probably see both films in theaters, though some who cannot spare the time or money to see two films in theaters around the same time will doubtless save one for streaming). There\u2019s also the issue of other films in the marketplace at the same time (the biggies are Ice Age 6, Robert Eggers\u2019 Werewulf and Jumanji 3, plus likely some indie efforts). \u201cIt will be especially bad for specialty distributors because everybody\u2019s going to free up every screen they have for those two films,\u201d says the exhibitor.<\/p>\n \n\tFor Dune and Avengers, however, there is another big issue. And by big, we mean big screens, or Premium Large Format screens, like Imax. <\/p>\n \n\tDune has secured Imax screens for three weeks of exclusivity. Dune would generally be considered the bigger Imax draw anyway given director Denis Villeneuve\u2019s level of sci-fi spectacle and that the film was partially filmed using Imax cameras. But still: observers worry Disney is leaving money on the table by not having Imax screens available. \u201cDoomsday not getting the PLF is insane,\u201d notes the exhibitor. \u201cIt\u2019s free money.\u201d The two films will share the spoils of the non-Imax PLFs, however.<\/p>\n \n\tInsiders say Disney and Marvel is unwavering in its decision to stick with the date, despite Dune\u2018s Imax exclusivity. While Imax and premium large format screens are in hot demand, there are plenty of regular screens. Barbie famously didn\u2019t get the Imax treatment because of Christoper Nolan\u2019s Oppenheimer, yet made far more money (north of $1.447 billion globally, to Oppenheimer\u2019s tidy $975 million, Imax accounting for more than $183 million of that).<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cThere will plenty of regular auditoriums left over for both films once the rest of the premium large-format screens ae divide up,\u201d says another exhibitor. \u201cFor us, it\u2019s a win-win. We\u2019ll have two huge movies throughout the two weeks of the Christmas holiday.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThe week before Christmas is considered a highly coveted corridor as moviegoing tends to remain high over the holidays going into the new year, thanks to kids being out of school and adults taking time off of work. As such, it\u2019s also considered the window that can most easily withstand two tentpole movies going head to head \u2014 moviegoers generally have enough free time to see more than one film. In pre-pandemic times, six, eight or even 10 movies of different sizes could prosper during the holidays. That\u2019s still the case, although the overall number of releases may have decreased.<\/p>\n \n\tOne element that creates some urgency is the matter of spoilers. Marvel fans generally like to see major new releases quickly to avoid the glut of online spoilers. The first two Dune films were faithful to Frank Herbert\u2019s first well-known Dune novel, but the teaser trailer suggests Part Three is more loosely based on Herbert\u2019s lesser-known Dune Messiah and, as such, probably contains plenty of surprises that fans won\u2019t want to be spoiled on either.<\/p>\n \n\tSo, how did this showdown get set up? Dune claimed the coveted ground first, setting its date back in 2024. The next Avengers movie (then called The Kang Dynasty) was originally planned for May 2025, but then moved its date twice, with creative changes \u2014 including the Russo Bros. boarding Doomsday and Secret Wars and moving away from Jonathan Majors\u2019 Kang. Marvel even launched a countdown clock to timed to the Dec. 18 date.<\/p>\n \n\tBoth films are expected to be big box office draws. But while the Marvel brand has stumbled lately when judged against its past success, the return of the Avengers brand with some of the franchise\u2019s most popular actors is expected to come out on top (Dune: Part Two made $750 million, Avengers: Endgame made $2.8 billion).<\/p>\n \n\tBack in the day, several tentpole movies opening around the same time wasn\u2019t hugely unusual (Batman, Ghostbusters II, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and Lethal Weapon 2 all famously opened within about a month of each other in 1989). It\u2019s the level of theatrical box office drought \u2014 for both exhibitors and studios \u2014 that makes the Avengers vs. Dune face-off feel like a bit, well, wasteful \u2014 like Mad Max: Fury Road\u2019s Immortan Joe blasting peasants dying of thirst a massive 10 second waterfall that soaks into the sand.<\/p>\n