Hollywood is at a critical juncture. For more than 100 days, the Writers Guild of America has been on strike against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, a marathon of work stoppages that has already lasted longer than the writers’ strike of 2007. For more than 40 days, the Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists launched their own strike against the AMPTP as the two unions fight together for fair pay and financial security in an evolving entertainment landscape that has been drastically changed by the streaming age and the rise of artificial intelligence.
With the studios failing to offer contracts that meet WGA and SAG-AFTRA requirements, there seems to be no end to the negotiations in sight. Productions across the film and television industry have been put on hold while actors and writers are banned from promoting their projects with AMPTP studios on social media, at press conferences, or at premieres and film festivals. Right now the studios are rationing releases and trying feed on leftovers by shedding completed projects from their dwindling inventories.
Last week, one of the most anticipated films of the year, Dune: Part Two, was delayed despite being ready for release. Warner Bros. announced that the sequel to Denis Villeneuve’s blockbuster Dune has been pushed back to March 15, 2024 from its original November 3 release. The joint decision by Warner Bros. Film Group and co-producer Legendary Entertainment was made just over two months before the film’s premiere, suggesting the studios aren’t expecting a resolution any time soon.
Dune: Part Two isn’t the first film to be delayed as a direct result of the work stoppages, and it certainly won’t be the last – but it is the biggest film to be delayed yet. The delay says a lot about the state of the industry. So let’s take a look at how we got into this and what it could mean for the fall winter release calendar, the box office, awards shows and the Dune franchise.
The Dune Domino Effect
On August 11, more than 100 days after the WGA strike began, the AMPTP returned to the negotiating table with its first and (so far) only counter-offer. The proposal failed to address many of the WGA’s concerns and fell far short of the union’s demands. Per a letter From the WGA negotiating committee to union members, a subsequent meeting with studio CEOs on May 22 August saw no further movement from the AMPTP, so talks stalled.
Less than a week after that August 22 meeting, Warner Bros. and Legendary decided they couldn’t wait any longer to take a call about the debut of Dune: Part Two. The delay contributes to a trend: films are slipping down the calendar because studios have concerns about box office returns, with no promotional boost for star talent. MGM Studios recently pushed back tennis romance starring Zendaya, Challengers, from September to next April, while Sony pushed back a number of 2023 titles, including Kraven the Hunter and Ghostbusters: Afterlife, to 2024. Given that these studios will eventually run out of time when movies hit theaters due to the production freeze, it’s possible they’ll lay claims to less competitive corners of the box office as well.
However, unlike the other projects that have been delayed, Dune: Part Two was one of the most anticipated films of 2023, and its fall release window had been locked in for more than a year. Back in October 2021, the sequel was already slated for an October 2023 release before landing in late 2022 for its now postponed launch date of November 3rd. The first trailer for the film was released in May, with the second following in late June 2022; Both promoted the film’s release in November and garnered more than 20 million views on YouTube. An IP-based sequel to an Oscar-winning film, and starring Austin Butler, Florence Pugh, Christopher Walken and Léa Seydoux, joining an already star-studded cast led by Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya, Dune: Part Two was as one of these films positioned the biggest box office hit of the year. When such a flagship film can earn a spot on the calendar less than three months before its premiere, it’s safe to say that nothing is nailed down as studios begin to feel the pressure of sealed production lines.
With the postponement of Dune: Part Two to March, Warner has pushed back other upcoming titles accordingly: Legendary’s Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire is being pushed back from March to April 12, and the animated film Lord of the New Line’s Rings: The War of the Rohirrim is Postponed Free the April release date in favor of December 13, 2024. For now, the studio has decided to stick with releases planned for December, which include Wonka (which also stars Chalamet), Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, and The Color Purple, which are said to debut on December 15, 20, and 25. It remains to be seen how other studios will react to Warner Bros. There will be a reshuffle of the schedule, but there may be further Blockbuster delays.
The autumn and winter box office 2023
Thanks to Barbenheimer alone, the film industry had an extremely successful summer at the box office. But theaters are still reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic and desperately need viewers to keep flocking to multiplexes as the existential threat posed by streaming mounts. With Dune: Part 2 pushed back to Spring, one of the year’s expected top earners has suddenly been removed from the 2023 release calendar. And its absence could have a significant impact on the overall box office outlook for the last two months of the year and beyond.
When Dune hit theaters in October 2021, the film was facing far greater financial hurdles than its sequel in November of that year. The sci-fi epic grossed $108 million domestically (and $402 million worldwide) from a reported budget of $165 million, which helped the theaters, which had limited capacity in major theaters earlier in the year US markets had reopened. But those numbers could have been significantly higher if Dune hadn’t debuted on the streaming service formerly known as HBO Max on the day of its theatrical release (and if the surge in the Omicron variant’s COVID cases in late 2021 hadn’t pushed theatrical attendance yet would have further affected).
Given that Dune: Part Two was slated to hit theaters exclusively before the holiday season, the sequel seemed to have a much larger yield. But without the massive star power of its cast to promote it, including Zendaya and her 185 million followers on Instagram alone, there’s no telling how close the film would have been to box office. Obviously, Warner Bros. wasn’t ready to find out. As such, the studio is now aiming for a mid-March release date, around spring break and ahead of the Easter break weekend.
Some highly anticipated films are due out (for now!) later this year, including Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon and Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla in October, Ridley Scott’s Napoleon in late November and Michael Mann’s Ferrari at Christmas . That said, these four films are all R-rated (or likely R-rated) projects with more modest financial prospects than the PG-13-rated Dune: Part Two, and there aren’t many other potential blockbusters on the list.
Without Dune: Part Two, the fall and winter season looks sparser, but some big releases could benefit from the film’s postponement. The biggest box-office beneficiary seems to be The Marvels, the upcoming crossover movie from Marvel Studios and directed by Nia DaCosta. The Captain Marvel sequel is expected to hit theaters on November 10, which would have put it in direct competition with Dune: Part Two had the latter film stayed on the schedule. Now, The Marvels not only loses its closest competitor at the box office, but also gets a chance to play on IMAX screens, having previously been banned from the format altogether thanks to Dune: Part Two. The Marvels could even push its release date a week earlier, which would give the film a longer run ahead of the November 17th arrival of its next major competitor, The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. ‘Captain Marvel’ Grosses Up The film will cost more than $1.1 billion in 2019, and the sequel will also feature key characters from the Disney+ series Ms. Marvel and WandaVision as it’s the first crossover -movie in phase 5 from Marvel Studios.
Despite all of that, Marvel Studios is mired in its biggest slump yet, right after the worst-reviewed Disney+ series of all time, Secret Invasion, a Nick Fury solo adventure that ties directly into the events of The Marvels. Earlier this year, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania became one of the few MCU films not to break even, and superhero films aren’t pulling in audiences as regularly as they used to. Although the Hunger Games prequel is not a superhero film, it is unlikely to be a huge hit as interest in the series dwindled by the end of the Katniss Everdeen saga in 2015.
Unless labor disputes are miraculously resolved by November and films like this aren’t backed by star-backed promotional tours, the fall and winter months may not be fruitful for cinemas. Hopefully, the loss of a major blockbuster will at least offer a greater chance of success for independent and low-budget films, especially as some A24 and Neon-produced projects — like Priscilla and Ferrari, respectively — are getting SAG-AFTRA interim agreements, allowing cast members to make their films apply.
The Awards Circuit
At the 2022 Academy Awards, Dune was nominated for ten Oscars and won six of them. Each of these wins was in technical categories, including Best On-Camera Performance and Best Audio. With Dune: Part Two being pushed back to March, the film is no longer eligible for the 2024 awards ceremony.
The postponement opens up easier paths for the other films to win at the upcoming Oscars, particularly for Oppenheimer in the technical categories previously dominated by Dune. However, Dune: Part Two might have a harder time earning an Oscar, as almost a year will elapse between its release and the subsequent Academy Awards ceremony in 2025.
Of course, given the ongoing disputes, it’s hard to say what will happen with the 2024 Oscars. The Emmy Awards have already been postponed from September to January due to the strikes. Awards ceremonies no longer reach live audiences like they used to, but awards themselves still enjoy real prestige. But those honors mean very little compared to the stakes in the fight for the future of Hollywood — and the future of creative work.
The future of the Dune franchise
As we near the end, we return to where we started: a delayed sequel to Dune. In this case, the sequel to the sequel. Only the Kwisatz Haderach could have foreseen the full impact that the delay of Dune: Part 2 will have on the Dune series, but we know that this will in turn delay all subsequent theatrical releases.
In a recent interview with Empire, Villeneuve teased that there were “words on paper” for Dune: Part Three, a film based on Dune Messiah, the second of six books in Frank Herbert’s classic science fiction series , would be based. Warner is still in the early stages of building its Dune movie universe, an endeavor that’s expanding to streaming as well, with the development of spin-off Max series Dune: The Sisterhood. This series faced problems of its own, leading to a halt to production even before the strikes began, as director Johan Renck and lead actress Shirley Henderson left the project for a creative overhaul in February. UK anti-strike laws are reportedly allowing production to resume in November, although the series will be filmed in Hungary. (Another well-known Warner TV project, House of the Dragon season 2, is being done for the same reason.)
There’s money to be made from the Dune name, so the cinematic spice has to flow at some point. But currently it has come to a standstill – and with it the supply of other spicy cinema IPs such as Star Wars, the MCU and Avatar. Hoarding existing supplies is only delaying the inevitable slowdown in blockbuster production, but with the studios still clinging to their hard-line stance in negotiations, Warner will give up that can and live at Dune another day.