It's officially on: Dune: Part Three and Avengers: Doomsday are coming out on the exact same day

This is, to put it mildly, a rarity in a world where the movie studios have gotten pretty good at getting out of each other’s way when there’s money on the line. Everybody brings up Barbenheimer, of course, but the whole point of that July 2023 phenomenon was in juxtaposition: There was a delightful dichotomy in choosing between the candy-colored comedy and the “Let’s recreate the Trinity Test” film that isn’t necessarily there between two big science-fiction action-adventures with at least a fair amount of surface-level similar appeal. Instead, it’s likely to be a straight-up slugfest, as Villeneuve faces off against the might of Joe and Anthony Russo’s return to their Marvel throne. (It also, as Variety helpfully notes, means that an absolutely ridiculous amount of top Hollywood talent is going to have a new movie in theaters on the exact same day; it’s actually kind of shocking that, as far as we can tell, the only performer overlapping between the two casts is Florence Pugh.) 

Reactions to this sudden glut has been mixed: Variety ran a piece this week suggesting that theater chains will be happy to play host to the battle; other movies might not be happy about getting squeezed out by these two films taking up a huge percentage of screens, but a theater industry starved for big hits will be happy to play host to a theatrical weekend likely to rank as one of the most lucrative of all time. (The top three owe their successes to a single film apiece,, two of which were directed by two of our participants here: Avengers: Infinity War in 2018 and the even more successful Endgame in 2019.) (Star Wars: The Force Awakens ranked third; Barbenheimer was fourth.) The Hollywood Reporter did manage to find at least a few anonymous theater execs annoyed that Warner Bros. and Disney aren’t spreading the financial love around a bit more, though, bemoaning that “Someone’s gotta move” in response to the double-booking. (Almost certainly not going to happen, though: Dune staked the date out first, only for Doomsday to hop there after initial plans to arrive in May of 2025. With posters printed and countdown clocks running, it’s unlikely either film will blink.) 

For theater nerds, there’s also the matter of the IMAX of it all: Dune snapped up the exclusive rights to the big, big screens almost immediately, denying Marvel the “free money” those screenings generate. Neither side seems especially worried, themselves, though; Robert Downey Jr. was joking about “Dunesday” back in January, and the sheer fact that neither side has been willing to budge suggests they both think there’s enough profit for both movies to successfully mine the run-up to Christmas 2026. It’ll be interesting to see how it all shakes out in reality, once the third week of December finally rolls around and these two movies obliterate every other thing trying to exist in theaters.