Denis Villeneuve’s 'Dune' tops North American box office with $40M in its first weekend

Denis Villeneuve’s highly-anticipated film, Dune earned $40.1 million in ticket sales in its first weekend in North America, reported AP. The record has drawn avid cinemagoers to watch the thundering sci-fi epic film on the big screen despite it also being available to stream in homes on the OTT platform. The production house, Warner Bros. released the Legendary Entertainment production in theatres as well as on HBO Max.

Denis Villeneuve's Dune earns $40.1m in the first weekend

The report suggests Dune marks the best domestic opening for any studio's hybrid releases by surpassing the $31.7 debut of Godzilla vs Kong in the month of March. The $165 million-budgeted film was expected to earn closer to $30-35 million. Jeff Goldstein, distribution chief for Warner Bros. said, "This was a tremendous result as we’re ramping out of the pandemic. Once we get out of the pandemic, if we have a movie like this, clearly you’d want to go into theatres first. There’s no question of that."

The Timothée Chalamet starrer film first premiered at the Venice Film Festival in early September and it had already grossed $130 million internationally. As per the report by AP, the film debuted with $21.6 million in China, where  Legendary and Wanda handled distribution. In total, Dune added $47.4 million internationally for a global cumulative gross of $220.7 million. 

Directed by Denis Villeneuve, the film is an adaptation of the 1965 novel of the same name by Frank Herbert and consists of an ensemble cast of actors namely Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Dave Bautista, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Zendaya, Oscar Isaac, Josh Brolin, Stellan Skarsgård, David Dastmalchian, Chang Chen, Sharon Duncan-Brewster, Charlotte Rampling, Jason Momoa, and Javier Bardem in pivotal roles.

The film is the second big-screen attempt at the epic after David Lynch's 1984 version. The filmmakers are yet to confirm a sequel to the sci-fi film, that chronicles a violent power shift on the desert planet Arrakis, where a valuable mineral called 'spice' is harvested. The film has garnered positive reviews and critics on Rotten Tomatoes have praised the operative sweep and its visual craft. Dune is rated 83% on the platform. 

Image: Dune Official Poster/Warner Bros Pictures