First came Barbenheimer, next up Dunesday?
At least that’s what Robert Downey Jr. & Timothée Chalamet would like to will into being when Dune: Part Three and Avengers: Doomsday premiere on December 18.
The actors appeared on stage together in LA on Wednesday for a special screening of Chalamet’s A24 movie Marty Supreme.
Downey Jr. told the audience: “We both have films opening on December 18, and we decided to coin it … We’re thinking Dunesday.’” The moniker got a laugh in the room, with Downey Jr. adding: “We’ll see if we’re still friends by then.”
The idea is that the two blockbusters can give each other a leg-up so that they can later bask in the reflected glory of box office success.
It worked for Barbie and Oppenheimer, which combined to gross close to $2.5B worldwide when they were released in 2023 and birthed the Barbenheimer phenomenon.
Other double-releases since then have similarly attempted to capture the zeitgeist, albeit with less success. The most notable example was perhaps Glicked, combining Wicked and Gladiator II.
Joe and Anthony Russo’s last Avengers title, Endgame, is the second-highest-grossing movie of all time with $2.8B at the global box office. Dune: Part Two grossed $715M worldwide
