Will Timothée Chalamet end the year on a higher note than he started it with Dune: Part 3?

One of the prominent film headlines this week is about Dune: Part 3, opening in four months on December 18, because presales started the other day to see the movie in 70mm and there was so much demand that it crashed ticketing websites.

Last summer it was The Odyssey selling out of 70mm screenings an entire year before opening. Now the story is about how people were queuing in person and online for Dune 3, to the point where the CEO of AMC had to release a statement online.

We try so hard to be expert in what we usually do so well, devoted as we are to pleasing hundreds of millions of guests in our theatres each year.

Today, though, as Dune 3 tickets went on sale, the crushing volumes briefly slowed or glitched our online ticketing systems.…
— Adam Aron (@CEOAdam) August 18, 2026

Screening a film in 70mm has become a status symbol. There aren’t enough 70mm screens, some people waited as many as three weeks, or more, to see The Odyssey in that format. Before The Odyssey it was Sinners that was the big draw in 70mm, which precipitated The Odyssey presales. With the success of The Odyssey this summer, everyone wants the premium theatrical experience with tentpole films – and that’s been the case with Spider-Man: Brand New Day as well. Brand New Day just crossed the $2 billion mark, and now holds the record for being the first movie in history to cross the $800 million mark domestically in just 19 days. Dune: Part 3 and Avengers: Doomsday, or Dunesday, are now beneficiaries of the 70mm frenzy this coming holiday season.

It isn’t all upside though. Obviously it’s great that the box office has rebounded and that people want to leave their homes to major motion picture theatrical events now. But one potential issue that is coming up is the concert-ification of movie tickets in 70mm. The online and in-person queues are becoming like Ticketmaster for concert tours. Resellers are putting tickets up at grossly inflated prices. So in that scarcity, not everyone wins – not the audience and not necessarily the filmmaking community overall because that doesn’t necessarily help mid-budget movies either.

That said, you know this does help? Timothée Chalamet. Rumours of his cultural demise have been greatly exaggerated and as much as some people on the internet don’t want to hear this, it’s an example of how conversation on the internet, and TikTok posts, don’t necessarily represent reality.

Sarah and I have been asked often about this over at The Squawk, like what impact the whole Marty Supreme and ballet and opera etc have had on Timmy’s career. And our answer, in brief, has been that he has Dune 3 in his back pocket, this really shouldn’t be a question.

With anticipation for Dune: Part 3 manifesting itself in tangible ticket sales data over hyperbolic online rhetoric, it’s an indication that Timmy might end the year on a much higher note than he started it, co-ruling the box office as a sort-of superhero among other superheroes.

I say Duneman because there’s been a bit of haha-ing at Timmy over the fact that he was desperate to become a superhero and was denied Spider-Man. Dune, though, is kind of his superhero story. Or Anakin Skywalker story, LOL. He’s played this character three times, it is a franchise, and it is literally challenging the Avengers at the box office, a holiday movie showdown. Or, if we want to make it friendly, together they could make history with the biggest opening weekend of all time at the box office. Is that a lump of coal for the internet that hates Timothée Chalamet?