Vic

Villeneuve is releasing Dune 3 on the exact same day as Avengers: Doomsday. And he locked up IMAX exclusivity for opening weekend. Run the format math. Dune 3 is shot entirely on 65mm film stock, 15-perf IMAX for the big sequences, 5-perf 65mm for the rest. Villeneuve hired Linus Sandgren, the La La Land DP who won’t touch a digital camera, and went native film from day one. The IMAX prints originate on the negative. 18K equivalent resolution. No upscaling, no digital intermediary. Avengers: Doomsday is shot digitally. Standard practice for Marvel. Which means on December 18, Dune owns every IMAX screen in the US and Marvel can’t buy a single one on opening night. Disney spent somewhere between $500 and $600 million producing Doomsday. They need $1 billion just to break even. And they don’t have IMAX. Dune: Part Two cost roughly $190 million and grossed $715 million worldwide, with $145 million from IMAX alone. That’s 20% of total gross coming from a format Marvel can’t access on the biggest revenue weekend of the release. Warner Bros. claimed December 18 first. Disney moved Doomsday there from May 2026 after already pushing it from May 2025. Three release dates in two years. Villeneuve wrapped filming in November 2025 and hasn’t moved once. A $190 million film just bodied a $600 million film out of every premium screen in America before a single trailer dropped. The MCU is getting mogged by a guy in a stillsuit.