Warner Bros. and Disney are going to release their two big bets of the year (‘Dune: Part Three’ and ‘Avengers: Doomsday‘) on the same date: December 18, 2026. The industry has not seen something like this for years. In fact, we haven’t seen it since the Barbenheimer phenomenon, and the question is whether its effect at the box office can be repeated… when the two films share exactly the same audience.
Dunesday, or whatever you want to call it. The two most powerful Hollywood studios, two of the most popular franchises in recent years, a single date. The industry already has a nickname for the event: “Dunesday“. But the fact that both coincide on that date does not respond to an agreed strategy. ‘Dune: Part Three’ arrived first in the pre-Christmas gap. ‘Avengers: Doomsday’ was initially scheduled for May 2025, but postponements derived from the strikes of actors and scriptwriters pushed it to where it is now, from where it is unlikely to move since on websites, networks and others there is a countdown in motion until the inevitable premiere.
The Barbenheimer precedent. Summer 2023 was left for the annals thanks to the coincidence of two very different films, ‘Barbie’ and ‘Oppenheimer’, on the same weekend in July. The combined weekend exceeded $300 million in the US alonebecoming the fourth best in historyonly behind the three opening weekends of ‘Avengers: Endgame’, ‘Infinity War’ and ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’. Different audiences, even different motivations for going to the movies, but a curious, almost miraculous real possibility of doing a very rare double program on the same day.
Why Dunesday is different. ‘Dune: Part Three’ and ‘Avengers: Doomsday’ don’t work like that. Both target similar viewers: devotees of science fiction and big-budget action, with a predominantly male base (this is important). Significantly or coincidentally, both feature Florence Pugh in their casts, which illustrates the extent to which they are not identical films, but do have their roots in a shared territory of blockbuster Hollywood. The idea of Dunesday, as Variety says, is not to propose two different and complementary plans, but to fill the respectable with a giant dose of similar things.
Why don’t they wiggle. That neither film wants to move from that date has a concrete explanation, prior to the invention of Dunesday: there are not many good gaps in that part of the year. Sony releases ‘Jumanji 3’ on December 11, a week early. Further back, the first weekend of December is usually a black hole at the box office (families are shopping, not in theaters), and Thanksgiving is traditionally occupied by Disney’s animated bet, because it is a more family-friendly box office weekend. December 18 is the best date available for two films that need a strong start.
What if it works? If the experiment works, the combined box office could be among the best weekends in history. In any case, here we find the usual problem: that July 2023 generated a social phenomenon (costumes, double sessions planned weeks before, debates on networks, friendly rivalry between the actors of the films, who encouraged people to go to both) that was organized outside the industry. “Dunesday” arrives much more in advance and with a slight air of a commercial montage. That’s not going to make the films click, of course, but the truth is that we are dealing with phenomena with nuances that go in opposite directions.
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