If things had gone to the plan laid out at the beginning of 2020, not only would Dune have been released in theaters last December, but it would already have been available on home media for several months now. Unfortunately, the pandemic forced Warner Bros to scrap that plan and push Dune back a year. Now the studio has announced that it is pushing back the Denis Villeneuve-helmed feature again as part of a theatrical calendar reshuffling.
Luckily, this latest Dune delay isn’t nearly as extreme as the last one. Instead of coming out on October 1, 2021, the sci-fi film will now come out on October 22, 2021, so that’s only an additional three weeks of waiting. That said, Dune is now part of an especially crowded opening weekend, as Last Night in Soho, The French Dispatch, Jackass 4 and Ron’s Gone Wrong are all opening on October 22 too.
As a result of Dune’s date shift, its vacated October 1 release slot will now be filled by The Many Saints of Newark, the Sopranos prequel that was previously dated for September 24. And now that Dune is sitting comfortably on October 22, the Warner Bros movie that was originally settled there, Cry Macho, is now actually coming out sooner rather than being delayed, as it will arrive on September 17.
Given how packed Dune’s new opening weekend is, I wouldn’t be surprised if one of its competitors decides to shift to a later release date so it doesn’t have to compete with the latest film adaptation of the same-named Frank Herbert novel. Either way, Dune is definitely the biggest blockbuster offering that weekend, and evidently Warner Bros felt it would be better to deliver it as October is winding down rather than at the start of the month.
Unlike David Lynch’s Dune movie from 1984, Denis Villeneuve’s Dune will only cover the first half of the original story. While Eric Roth, who co-wrote the Dune script with Villeneuve and Jon Spaihts, has written a full treatment for Dune 2, Warner Bros’ hasn’t officially greenlit the sequel yet. There's also a prequel series in the works for HBO Max called Dune: The Sisterhood. As far as this first movie goes, its ensemble cast includes Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Zendaya, Javier Bardem, Oscar Isaac, Jason Momoa, Josh Brolin, Dave Bautista and Stellan Skarsgård, among others.
Like the rest of Warner Bros’ 2021 film slate, in addition to its theatrical release, Dune will be available on HBO Max October 22 for one month at no extra cost to subscribers, (something Denis Villeneuve isn’t jazzed about). Keep track of the other movies arriving later in the year with our 2021 release schedule.
