Legendary and Warner Bros. announced new theatrical release plans for two of their high-profile films Thursday.
In a relatively minor shift, filmmaker Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Two is being pushed back less than a month from Oct. 20, 2023, to Nov. 17, 2023. That means the sequel will have the advantage of playing over the Thanksgiving holiday.
And Adam Wingard’s next installment in the Godzilla-Kong franchise will hit theaters March 15, 2024.
Wingard’s Godzilla vs. Kong, released in March 2021, earned $468.2 million globally. It was a strong showing for a title released amid the pandemic and which hit HBO Max day-and-date as part of Warners’ plan to send all of its 2021 titles to theaters and streaming simultaneously.
Villeneuve’s Dune also did nicely, considering the COVID-19 crisis (it was likewise released in 2021 and hit theaters and streaming day-and-date). The sci-pic grossed north of $400 million globally and won six Oscars.
The previously announced Dune sequel will star Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Zendaya, Josh Brolin, Florence Pugh, Austin Butler, Christopher Walken and Javier Bardem. Producers are Mary Parent, Cale Boyter, Villeneuve and Tanya LaPointe.
Parent, Alex Garcia, Eric McLeod, Thomas Tull and Jon Jashni are producing the untitled Godzilla-Kong movie.
Dune 2 will face competition at the box office from Lionsgate’s The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, which also opens that weekend. The Thanksgiving marquee can always be crowded, and other 2023 holiday offerings include Universal and DreamWorks’ Trolls 3 and Paramount’s John Krasinski-Ryan Reynolds film Imaginary Friends.
