DUNE RELEASE DATE THEORY

many of us have been wondering when WB is gonna officially move Dune, and after some consideration I think I might have an answer...

1. PECULIAR PATTERN

All huge movies, including WB movies, have had their release dates change and shift consistently over the course of this year. Except Dune.

This is peculiar, because it is a huge film they are banking on being another LOTR type theatre event, and to many considers a financial risk. So why not move it? For a whole many of us thought it was because they were hoping less competition in December was their idea.

However now multiple films have been moved to December, and multiple on Dec. 18 which is the exact release. Now with competition especially WW84, not moving Dune is strange and slightly concerning.

Then on top of all that, January and February are now totally clear of big releases thanks to the Marvel slate shifting. So to many the logical move is to change the release to sometime in February, which would still qualify for Oscar season.

And now even James Bond has moved its release to 2021. Yet still no word on Dune.

2. PROMOTIONAL MATERIAL

For a few months now, people have been wondering what is up with the Dune marketing. It took ages to get a trailer, which was awesome, but it took a while. And non of the official material says December 18th on it, just Only in Theatres.

Going even further, there has been seemingly inconsistent or strange reveals in the toy merch. Such as our first real look at The Baron being a toy and not a look in a trailer. Or a tie-in paperback book that would contain some sort of teaser poster art but yet no posters at all.

People have worried this might be WB dropping the ball, but given something recently come to my attention, I think this is all entirely intentional.

3. PANDEMIC CONTEXT

We know WB wants Dune to succeed, but in a pandemic world that is gonna be very hard. They have had first hand experience with Tenet when it comes to trying to get a big budget film to do well under these constraints.

They also have first hand experience dealing with expanding marketing budgets by films that have been moved multiple times such as WW84 that was supposed to come out a year ago.

They don’t want those issues to befall Dune, so I found myself asking why they are acting the way they are. And my dad ended up answering the question for me.

We were eating dinner yesterday, and we got to talking about recent news about the pandemic, and he mentioned an update on the vaccine. They won’t know till November 5th if they have a safe and working vaccine, and that is when they will get their official FDA approval.

I asked him when he thinks people will be able to start taking it by, and he said depending on how fast they can manufacture and distribute it, probably not till around Spring. And then something dawned on me: this is what WB are waiting for.

Because even if the population can start taking the vaccine in Spring, we won’t know till November at the earliest what the projections are for when most of the population will have taken the vaccine. That might not be till July or August.

So what this means, is even if we get an approved vaccine in November, the first half at least of 2021 will still not be back to normal and more likely then not, the release slate for 2021 will shift all over again.

And with NATO saying theatres may close again to save money, theatres probably won’t be getting back to normal till next fall (if we are being optimistic).

4. MY THEORY ON WB’S PLAN FOR DUNE

So what does all this mean? It means WB and Legendary take Dune very seriously and want the best for it. And they are thinking in the long game.

Right now the official release date is December 18th, and I don’t believe that will change any time soon. Not till November a least, when the vaccine gets FDA approval, and scientists and start giving approximate projections for how the vaccine will be distributed.

One WB know that, then they will move Dune. So let’s say everything looks to be more or less back to normal by fall of 2021. Then what WB will do, is swap Dune with the release of one of their other films scheduled for 2021 and push that one to 2022.

And we won’t start seeing posters till WB know what date they will be aiming most realistically for. Why? Because they don’t want to push their marketing budget like with WW84, or waist it on content with the wrong date. Posters get printed an more widely distributed,

like on billboards or internet ads etc. so putting an official release date on posters, is imperative. So they don’t want to waist that.

The reason why toy releases are inconsistent, is those companies have their own timelines. It’s also why we might not have seen other characters yet like Chani, because some merch might be being held back where possible, to be released later with the real premiere timeline.

Some potential release dates for Dune could be the Fantastic Beasts 3 November 12th spot, or the Sherlock Holmes 3 December 22nd spot.

5. IN CONCLUSION

So what is gonna happen? I don’t know for sure. But this is my best guess given WB’s behaviour. It’s still very possible it will release in February, and perhaps things will improve enough by then.

But if not I think it’s far more likely WB are waiting on the vaccine FDA approval in November, and those projections, before they make any official announcements on Dune’s release. We’ll see what happens!

UPDATE: gonna keep updates on this thread, and as you can see a major theatre chain is closing in vast numbers in the UK. The rest of the year isn’t fit for any big movie releases if this keeps happening. https://twitter.com/variety/status/1312546472836112384