Part 3 Release Date Chicken

We love combining movie names ever since Barbie and Oppenheimer created Oppenarbie, sharing the same release weekend. This year, we have Dunesday, with Avengers: Doomsday and Dune: Part 3, both enormous blockbusters, releasing on the same day, December 18, 2026.

This was always a bit head-scratching, as there is a reason two enormous movies do not usually butt heads, with rare Barbenheimer (yes, I know what it really was) exceptions. An Avengers movie doing this especially seemed wild.

There is a new report out from John Campea who says after some speculation from other outlets, he spoke with a source in exhibitor relations that says there are “discussions” about Avengers: Doomsday being the one to blink, moving off that date to one week earlier on December 11.

One factor here, outside of just “two big movies may cannibalize each other,” is that Dune: Part 3 has a ton of IMAX screens locked up for distribution that Doomsday cannot get on that release day. Moving up would allow Doomsday to get at least one weekend of a bunch of IMAXes before Dune takes them over, which may tip the scales into making this happen, Doomsday, swerving in this game of release date chicken.

Would Avengers: Doomsday have won the weekend if they shared it? Probably. Here are the domestic opening weekend totals for all Avengers movies plus two Dune movies.

• Avengers – $207 million
• Avengers: Age of Ultron – $191.3 million
• Avengers: Infinity War – $257.7 million
• Avengers: Endgame – $357.1 million
• Dune: Part One – $41 million
• Dune: Part Two – $82.5 million

If you’re about to say, “well, the post-Endgame era has not been great,” and there’s Marvel fatigue, let me show you the Spider-Man: Brand New Day trailer that is the first trailer to break 1 billion views on YouTube. (Avengers: Doomsday isn’t quite comparable, as it opened with those short little teaser trailers).

So, it’s more than likely that Avengers: Doomsday would have “won” anyway, but with both an unneeded dip shared with a blockbuster, and a lack of IMAX screens that they can get if they shift just a week. Dune isn’t going to move after getting those screens, potentially opening them up for Doomsday. Whoever secured that deal deserves a raise.

Again, none of this is official, but we have at least one report that it may happen (we are still nine months away after all), and almost everything about it makes sense, given the situation at hand. I don’t think this is Doomsday being “scared” of Dune, again, they’d win the weekend, but the IMAX factor may be decisive.

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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.