Tall Skinny Dune

No rest for the wicked! The Oscars are over and we are MOVING ON! Today, it’s the Dune: Part Three teaser, tomorrow, it’s the Spider-Man: Brand New Day teaser! The person I really feel bad for is Zendaya, caught in the middle of the Marvel-Warner Bros. death spiral like a child of divorce! Anyway, let’s talk Dune: Part Three.

The teaser comes in vertical format, which I am sure Denis Villeneuve loves. I know this is how people are watching videos on their phones, and everyone is watching every video on their phones, but look at this vertical teaser and tell me it doesn’t make Dune look small:

We know what Denis Villeneuve’s Dune looks like, and it is NOT narrow. Dune is not tall and skinny! Dune is wide and lush! Dune is a desert goddess filling all the space! The loss of scope and scale is a bummer, especially because some of these visuals look very striking. I bet that field of bodies in the muck is going to be grotesque and shattering in full-screen format. But maybe I’m just being grumpy, maybe nobody else cares about vertical vs horizontal visuals. Let me know what you think.

The teaser shows Timothee Chalamet as a battle-weary and battle-scarred Paul Atreides, fighting a full-scale galactic war. We also see Zendaya as his lover, Chani, as they’re expecting a child. There are also quick looks at Florence Pugh, Anya Taylor-Joy, Robert Pattinson, and Jason Momoa returning as Duncan Idaho (“Duncan Idaho”, iykyk). With this cast, the title of this movie could be: Cheekbones: The Movie.

As of right now, Warner Bros. Discovery is committed to releasing Dune: Part Three on December 18. Avengers: Doomsday is also still dated for December 18. Barbenheimer tricked everyone into thinking two huge movies can open on the same day and everyone wins, but that only worked because Barbie and Oppenheimer were so diametrically, thematically opposed that it made the double-bill inherently funny and interesting to do as a cinema experience.

That is not the case for Dune and Avengers, they are, at core, the same kind of movie, just painted in different skins. One of these movies needs to move to a different date, to let both thrive, because they WILL cannibalize their shared audience. And for Marvel, moving is further incentivized because Dune has all the IMAX screens locked down, and these big movies with blowout budgets need the premium large format ticket sales to boost their box office.

I don’t know why they’re insisting on “Dunesday”, it’s fetch, it’s not happening. Someone will lose (probably Marvel, which they really cannot absorb right now). This is years of stubbornness fueled by hubris playing out in front of us, at a time when the film industry remains very precarious and everyone should be concentrating on creating a supportive environment that encourages people to come back to theaters consistently, not pile in two weekends a year. But again, maybe I’m just grumpy.

We're Squawking Dune today. Let us know your thoughts on this teaser! Would you do a “Dunesday” double bill? (App link here)

Attached - Zendaya in LA yesterday for Kimmel.