Denis Villeneuve’s long-awaited live-action adaptation of Frank Herbert’s seminal sci-fi classic Dune has a new release date. Previously set to come out on October 1, 2021, the studio has pushed it instead for three weeks until October 22. At least this time, COVID-19 isn’t to blame. As the article by AVClub explains, the latest James Bond film No Time to Die is also coming out in October. Because of this, the studio decided to change Dune’s release date to avoid competition. As with all the other Warner Bros. movies this year, Dune will also become instantly available for digital streaming on HBO Max. Villeneuve’s sci-fi epic will premiere on September 3 at the 78th Venice International Film Festival.
With the pandemic slowing down, studios are now jostling against each other to find the best release dates for their big-budget titles. Many of these films have been gathering dust on hard disks for over a year. Even with a delay in releases, Dune will still open on the same weekend as two other movies eagerly awaited by the cinephiles – Edgar Wright’s Last Night in Soho and Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch. Unlike his comedy Shaun of the Dead, Wright’s Last Night in Soho is a psychological horror film starring Thomasin McKenzie (Jojo Rabbit) and Anya Taylor-Joy (Queen’s Gambit). But that movie was at least slated for a release in autumn 2021. Meanwhile, Anderson’s latest comedy-drama (with a stellar ensemble cast too long to even list here) has been put on hold by the pandemic since May 2020 – a whooping eighteen months!
