Dune: Part Three Just Beat The Odyssey's IMAX Record — 33,000 Tickets in One Day

LONDON

The record did not even survive the season. BFI IMAX, the largest cinema screen in the United Kingdom, sold 33,000 advance tickets for Dune: Part Three in the first 24 hours they were on sale, grossing more than \u00a3880,000 and setting a new first-day presale record for the venue, according to figures reported by Deadline. The mark it erased belonged to Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey, which took \u00a3750,000 on its first day at the same screen this year. Denis Villeneuve's finale does not open until December 18. It is already beating the biggest film of the summer at the box-office game that venue keeps score of best.

The duel matters because of where it is happening. BFI IMAX is a single screen on London's South Bank, and its first-day presale chart has quietly become the cleanest leaderboard in event cinema: same screen, same 24-hour window, no worldwide totals to hide behind. On that chart, Dune: Part Three did not inch past The Odyssey \u2014 it cleared it by \u00a3130,000, and it took more than double what Dune: Part Two managed on its own first day, \u00a3366,000. Screen Rant, reporting The Hollywood Reporter's account of the record, published the same top five: The Odyssey at \u00a3750,000, Part Two at \u00a3366,000, Oppenheimer at \u00a3254,000 and Avatar: Fire and Ash at \u00a3116,000. Every film on that list is a premium-format event. Part Three now sits on top of all of them.

What makes the number sting for the previous record-holder is what The Odyssey did after its own first day. Nolan's film went on to sell more than 100,000 admissions at BFI IMAX and gross about \u00a32.7 million there, at 95 percent occupancy, becoming the highest-grossing film in the venue's history, according to Deadline's reporting. In other words, Part Three has not beaten a placeholder. It has beaten the strongest full run the building has ever seen \u2014 at the starting line, with two months still to go before its first public screening.

Demand That Has Been Building All Year

The record was not a one-day ambush. Three opening-weekend screenings of Part Three sold out in under an hour back in April, CBR reported, and two preview screenings sold out earlier this month. The audience for this film, on this screen, has been queueing in waves for half a year. BFI is feeding that demand with a full December program: Dune (2021) and Dune: Part Two return to the screen from December 11, with Part Two shown in IMAX 70mm film, and Part Three previews begin December 15, also in IMAX 70mm, ahead of the general release on December 18, according to Filmofilia's account of the venue's plans.

There is honest context to keep attached to the celebration. These are advance sales at one venue, not a worldwide gross, and presale heat has flattered films before. But the signal here is specific, and it is the one studios now chase hardest: for the biggest titles, the audience is concentrating into premium large-format seats, bought early and at full price. Dune: Part Two grossed about $714 million worldwide, and Villeneuve's trilogy has become the defining big-screen science-fiction saga of its decade. A first-day record at the UK's flagship IMAX screen \u2014 against a Nolan film, in Nolan's own format \u2014 is the strongest early evidence yet that the finale is arriving as an event, not just a sequel. Screen Rant has also reported that Warner Bros. secured an exclusive IMAX window for the film, which would keep rival releases out of the format for its first three weeks.

The Finale Itself

Dune: Part Three closes the trilogy Villeneuve began in 2021, adapting Frank Herbert's novels. Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet returns as Paul Atreides, with Zendaya as Chani, Florence Pugh as Princess Irulan and Anya Taylor-Joy as Alia Atreides, according to CBR's film details. The screenplay is by Jon Spaihts, Villeneuve and Herbert. It is, by design, the last of Villeneuve's Dune films \u2014 which makes the presale surge a farewell as much as a launch: this audience is not only buying a movie, it is buying the final chance to see this cast and this director finish the story on the largest screen in the country.

Villeneuve and Nolan have been circling each other at the premium end of the box office for years \u2014 two directors whose names alone sell IMAX tickets, whose films open like sporting events. This round, at the venue that keeps the receipts, goes to Villeneuve, and it is not close: 33,000 tickets, more than \u00a3880,000, one day. The Odyssey still owns the venue's all-time gross. Whether Part Three can take that record too is a question December will answer \u2014 starting with those sold-out 70mm previews on December 15. For more film coverage, see the Entertainment hub and browse the full Previously newsroom.