Avengers: Doomsday Would Be Foolish To Challenge Dune 3 Now

Last May, Marvel Studios made a seismic change to Avengers: Doomsday, pushing its release from the franchise's typical early May slot (where it can kick off the summer blockbuster season) to the often lucrative pre-Christmas window in December. But when Marvel and Disney moved the release date to December 18, 2026, it put Doomsday head-to-head with Denis Villeneuve's Dune: Part Three.

We've been barreling toward a clash between the MCU and Dune ever since, with neither movie showing much interest in backing down from the challenge. Stars Robert Downey Jr. and Timothée Chalamet have even done their part to tease the "Dunesday" cinematic event, hoping to spark the level of interest Barbie and Oppenheimer did with the $2.3 billion "Barbenheimer" phenomenon.

It's never made much sense for Doomsday and Dune 3 to take each other on in this regard, as they're targeting similar viewers. And while both movies would still certainly do well if they opened in the same weekend, there's also no doubt that they'd both be costing themselves some business up front. That's especially true for Doomsday after a new Dune 3 update, which proves "Dunesday" would be worse for Marvel.

Dune 3 Will Keep Avengers: Doomsday Out Of Most IMAX Theaters

One of the major subplots of the Dune 3 and Doomsday showdown is that both movies were slated for IMAX release. Questions about how this would be handled have long lingered, with rumblings going in the former's favor since it used IMAX film cameras during production to achieve certain sequences rather than being filmed with the IMAX aspect ratio in mind, as the Russos did with Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, which were the first Hollywood features shot entirely with IMAX digital cameras.

Now, it's been confirmed that Doomsday won't be in IMAX, as the company has given Dune 3 exclusivity to the premium large format screens domestically for at least its opening weekend. The MCU Phase 6 movie will only play in IMAX in select international locations at the start.

Doomsday could even have to wait weeks for access to the whole allotment of IMAX screens, depending on the exact details of the Dune 3 deal, as the company is favoring the film made with its cameras (the same reason Spider-Man: Brand New Day won't be in IMAX). But even if the MCU film gains access to some IMAX theaters domestically after the opening weekend, it will still certainly have to split them with Dune 3 for a long time.

Avengers: Doomsday Not Opening In IMAX Will Really Hurt Its Box Office

This is uncharted waters for the Avengers franchise, as each one benefited at the box office because of an IMAX partnership. We can look at Avengers: Endgame specifically to show just how important playing on these large screens has been to the MCU.

The Phase 3 film shattered box office records across the board, and one of the reasons for that was its wide availability in these PLF screens. Endgame broke IMAX's opening weekend record, pulling in $91.5 million worldwide. This included a record $42.4 million outing in China and the $26.5 million it made domestically, which is the second-most all-time according to IMAX.

That helped propel the movie to a $357.1 million domestic opening and $1.22 billion global opening, which are both record high performances for any movie. IMAX theaters were responsible for 7.4% of Endgame's domestic opening and 7.5% of its worldwide opening.

That might not seem like a lot to remove from Doomsday's box office equation, but with it already losing business to Dune 3 in any head-to-head scenario, the losses would really start to grow. After all, the reality is Marvel would still have to fight for IMAX screens in the following weeks when some interest has started to wane. The effects of non-IMAX exclusivity would be felt through Doomsday's entire run.

Looking at Endgame as the example again, the movie maintained relevance in IMAX well beyond its opening weekend. Deadline reported Endgame made $207 million in IMAX after just three weeks in theaters. This broke down to $62M domestic and $145M internationally (including $81.2M in China).

To put that into perspective, Avengers: Infinity War made $118 million in this format during a similar frame, according to IMAX; it opened to $41.5 million worldwide in the format. The movie finished with roughly $140 million (via Deadline). It's likely Endgame wound up making somewhere between $230M-$270M in IMAX when it was all said and done.

If you completely remove that total, or half of it, from Endgame's box office, we're still talking about an incredible, record-breaking ~$2.6 billion performance. There's no telling if Doomsday will come close to that total, but Marvel certainly wants every advantage at its disposal to do so. For that reason, it'd be foolish to release the movie against Dune 3 and lose any IMAX showing opportunities.

It would still probably come out on top of that December 18 weekend, but at what cost? If we project that Doomsday would perform similarly to the last two Avengers in IMAX with an exclusive opening, Marvel could be throwing away between $50 million to $100 million at the box office by taking on Dune 3.

Whether Avengers: Doomsday moves or hopes Dune 3 does, Marvel would be making a huge mistake if it allows this showdown to happen at the year's end. Ignoring that level of potential success just doesn't make sense, even if they have to be the ones to move off the date and shift the MCU film to April 2027 to do so.