Dunesday: will this be Barbenheimer on steroids – the biggest weekend of cinema ever?

I’ve just arrived on this planet. Barbenheimer? The momentous day in July 2023 when Barbie and Oppenheimer were simultaneously released into cinemas worldwide.

And everyone picked sides? Or they saw both films on the same day, causing tonal whiplash from which they may still be recovering.

Fun times. And lucrative times, too. Barbie made $356m (£285m) worldwide on its opening weekend, while Oppenheimer shattered expectations by taking $180m. The £36m spent in UK cinemas that weekend made it the most successful since 2019, while it was the fourth-biggest box office weekend in the US ever.

So the Barbenheimer effect was real? Absolutely. For perhaps the first time, filmgoers en masse saw the dual releases of two blockbusters as complimentary, rather than a contest. Anyway, forget about Barbenheimer, because this December welcomes Dunesday, which will be Barbenheimer on steroids.

Two big films being released on the same day again? That’s right. This time, it’s Avengers: Doomsday and Dune: Part Three. Both come out on 18 December. It’s going to be huge!

I think I’ll pass. What? Why? Dune is the dramatic conclusion of an epic, skilfully told story that has so far made more than $1bn worldwide. Doomsday is the first Avengers film since 2019’s Endgame, which was for a time the biggest movie of all time.

Nah. Why? Is it because we live in a media landscape where everyone knows that they’ll probably be able to watch both films for free on a streaming platform by Easter?

Nope. Maybe it’s that Dune and Doomsday lack the visual, tonal and demographic diversity of Barbie and Oppenheimer, given that they’re essentially bombastic action films for teenage boys.

Not even close. What if I told you that the release date has caused one of the funniest arguments in cinema history?

It has? Oh yes. Dune: Part Three was filmed for Imax and has commandeered all the Imax screens around the world on release day. This so annoyed Disney – the parent company of Marvel, the studio behind Avengers: Doomsday – that it invented InfinityVision, an exhibition certification scheme for any cinema with a sufficiently large screen.

Funny, but I’m still not interested. Enlighten me.

Barbenheimer was a genuine grassroots movement that seemed to catch the studios by surprise. Whereas this seems more manufactured?

Yes. Hollywood does this a lot, doesn’t it? Remember Gladdington, when Gladiator II and Paddington in Peru came out on the same day? Or Exorswift (The Exorcist: Believer and Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour)? Or, God help us, Saw Patrol (Saw X and Paw Patrol: The Mighty Movie)?