Two months before it opens in theaters, Dune: Part Three has already made box office history. London's BFI IMAX — the largest cinema screen in the UK — sold 33,000 advance tickets in the first 24 hours they were on sale, grossing more than £880,000 and setting a new first-day presale record for the venue, according to figures reported by Deadline.
The mark it erased belonged to Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey, which took £750,000 on its first day at the same screen earlier this year. Part Three also more than doubled what Dune: Part Two managed on its own first day — £366,000 — with Oppenheimer (£254,000) and Avatar: Fire and Ash (£116,000) rounding out the venue's top five, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The scramble fits a year in which premium large-format tickets have become the hottest currency in Hollywood. Warner Bros. secured an exclusive IMAX window for the finale, meaning other December heavyweights — including Marvel's Avengers: Doomsday — cannot screen in that format for three weeks, as reported by The Hollywood Reporter.
Demand has barely cooled since April, when three opening-weekend screenings vanished in under an hour. The BFI will present the film on an IMAX 70mm print, with preview screenings starting December 15.
Dune: Part Three opens internationally on December 16 and in North America on December 18, the same day as Avengers: Doomsday — a same-day clash many analysts are already calling this year's "Dunesday" showdown. One box office tracker is projecting a domestic opening of more than $100 million. December cannot come soon enough.