‘Dune: Part Three’ Tracker Sees a Real Shot at Dethroning ‘The Odyssey’ Opening, Even With Poor Walkups

Few releases this year have generated as much early noise as ‘Dune: Part Three’, Denis Villeneuve’s closing chapter to the Frank Herbert trilogy. Warner Bros. and Legendary have stacked the rollout with waves of IMAX 70mm, Dolby and premium large format presales, and several of them have overwhelmed ticketing systems, including AMC’s website.

The film opens in North America on Dec. 18, with the international rollout beginning on Dec. 16. It lands on the same day as Marvel’s ‘Avengers: Doomsday’, a head-to-head fans have nicknamed “Dunesday,” and it carries an exclusive IMAX window for its opening weekend after being partially shot with IMAX cameras.

Now, with standard ticket sales running for a few weeks, one box office tracker on the Box Office Theory forum says they have seen enough. The tracker is projecting a domestic opening of $100 million or more for ‘Dune: Part Three’, and believes it has a real shot at beating the opening weekend of ‘The Odyssey’, even while facing the Marvel behemoth.

The forecast holds even if walkup business turns out poor. In that scenario, the tracker still expects a low-$100-million opening, along with roughly $25 million in Thursday previews, not counting extra early access sales that could add high single digits.

TheFlatLannister on BOT: I think I have seen enough with Dune’s presales after a few weeks of standard sales. I am seeing $100M+ OW…I think it has a real shot at beating The Odyssey OW. Even with poor walkups, I think Dune is getting to at least $25M+ in previews.
by u/EcstaticPublic9939 in boxoffice

The comparison points are striking. At the MTC3 checkpoint, ‘Dune: Part Three’ presales are running 110% ahead of ‘The Odyssey’ opening weekend at the same point in time. For previews, the film sits 53% ahead of Christopher Nolan’s epic and 60% behind ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’.

The tracker also flags a caveat that matters. ‘The Odyssey’ would have been on sale for only a few days at this point, and it did not have standard tickets live 37 days out, so the 110% figure is expected to drop quite a bit closer to release.

‘The Odyssey’ set a high bar. Nolan’s adaptation of Homer’s epic opened on July 17 to $124.5 million domestically and $264.1 million worldwide, and its Thursday previews reportedly reached $17.6 million. That made it Nolan’s biggest global opening ever.

‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ went bigger still. Advance sales began 45 days before release, leading to a domestic record opening of $360 million and a global debut of $927 million, second only to ‘Avengers: Endgame’.

That would be a leap for a series whose last entry opened to $82.5 million. Other trackers have been similarly bullish: early tracking pointed to a domestic debut of $100 million to $130 million and a global opening around $230 million, and the film reportedly generated about $10 million in advance sales on the first day of wider presales, a franchise best.

Another report said ‘Dune: Part Three’ had crossed $25 million in domestic presales with 48 days to go, outpacing ‘The Odyssey’ at that stage. Still, those same reports caution that presales do not always translate directly into opening weekend results.

“Forgive me for all I’ve done.” Experience the epic conclusion. Dune: Part Three only in theaters and IMAX December 18. #DuneMovie #FilmedforIMAX https://t.co/x9Nftg9yXd

— DUNE (@dunemovie) July 8, 2026

The elephant in the room is the Marvel film. ‘Avengers: Doomsday’ became the first film to pass $50 million in presales 100 days before release, and one box office account has said presales suggest it will win the weekend by roughly 3.2x or 4x to 1.

Yet ‘Dune: Part Three’ has one structural edge. With no IMAX screens available to ‘Avengers: Doomsday’ for its first few weeks, Villeneuve’s film has the format largely to itself, and theaters have reported dozens of IMAX 70mm sellouts for opening weekend.

All of this is still projection. Presale tracking is a snapshot, and the caveat about ‘The Odyssey’ comparison shows how easily early percentages can shift as the release date approaches.

Even so, the picture is clear: early demand for ‘Dune: Part Three’ is running well ahead of the franchise’s past. Whether it can really top Nolan’s debut will depend on walkup traffic, premium screens and how much the Marvel rival takes from the weekend.

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