'Dune Part Two': Scott Mendelson's Overlong Pessimistic And Optimistic Box Office Prediction

Will 'Dune Part Two' play like 'John Wick 2,' 'Across the Spider-Verse' or 'Scream 2'?

With paid preview screenings starting tomorrow as early as 3:00 pm, Denis Villeneuve's Dune Part Two is expected to be Hollywood’s first tentpole smash of 2024. Conventional wisdom suggests an over/under $75 million domestic and over/under $170 million global launch. Warner Bros. Discovery has tried to temper expectations, offering a $65 million domestic projection. Studios almost always “predict” smaller figures than tracking services and rival studios for what should be obvious reasons.  

That said, The BoxOffice Company is claiming that advance tickets are moving at a better pace than they saw for Oppenheimer (which opened with $81 million last July) and John Wick: Chapter 4 (which launched with $73 million last March), suggesting that it’s another buzzy, critically-acclaimed epic whose running time isn’t an issue whether anyone is planning on bringing their kids.  

So, since I haven’t done one of these since Black Panther: Wakanda Forever in October of 2022 (my “pessimistic” “It just plays like a conventional sequel” prediction turned out to be dead on), I thought I’d lay out the numbers, precedents and related variables for essentially an optimistic and pessimistic box office prediction for Dune Part Two.

For the record, A) Dune Part Two should not be *expected* to top $1 billion worldwide and B) we, especially now amid Covid and streaming-impacted industry trends and a massive Hollywood decline in China, need to stop using “$1 billion global” as a generalized phrase for “film is successful at the worldwide box office. That being said, let’s ride a worm...  

Dune Part Two is guaranteed to *open* like a breakout sequel. 

The first film was well-reviewed, mostly well-received and won six Academy Awards (cinematography, editing, score, visual effects, production design and sound). While not a massive hit ($109 million domestic and $402 million worldwide on a $165 million budget), it was seen as a success and has been “discovered” by general audiences on HBO Max during its initial run or via streaming, VOD, DVD and the like over the last two years. Those ingredients often spawn a breakout sequel, whereby all that earned goodwill pays off for the opening weekend of the just chapter.  

No, we’re not talking about sky-high blow-out sequels like The Dark Knight (from $371 million to $1 billion), Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (from $67 million to $313 million) or Pitch Perfect 2 (from $115 million to $288 million). They topped or nearly topped their predecessors’ respective respective domestic totals on the first Fri-Sun frame and then earned 2.5-4.5x their previous films’ global totals. Likewise, Rambo: First Blood Part II (co-written by James Cameron) and Terminator 2: Judgment Day skyrocketed way past their respective predecessors by (like The Dark Knight) becoming global pop culture zeitgeist moments well beyond their mere existence as a sequel to a well-liked genre flick. 

However, even the current “safe” weekend guestimate of $65 million would be a 62% jump from the first film’s $40 million. Even Captain America: The Winter Solider opened with $94 million, “just” 44% more than the $65 million launch of Captain America: The First Avenger three years prior. So, barring an unthinkable catastrophe, Dune Part Two will absolutely *open* like a breakout sequel.  

But what then? If you want to know… well, new hearing aids are *expensive*.