‘Dunesday’ Odds Just Spiked, and Traders Think It’s About to Break a Barbenheimer Record

Box office prognosticators have spent years chasing another Barbenheimer moment, that rare alignment where two massive films release on the same day and somehow lift each other instead of splitting the audience. Most attempts at recreating that magic have fizzled, but one December date is now generating the kind of buzz that hasn’t been seen since 2023.

‘Avengers: Doomsday‘ and ‘Dune: Part Three’ are both locked into a shared release date of December 18, and neither studio has budged despite months of speculation that one side might move. Fans have already nicknamed the collision “Dunesday,” a nod to the pop-culture explosion that Barbie and Oppenheimer created when they opened together.

Now, prediction markets are backing that comparison in a big way. According to Polymarket.com traders, “Dunesday” is projected to beat Barbenheimer’s domestic opening weekend record, with the combined market showing a 93% chance of that happening, a figure that has jumped 42 points as anticipation builds.

The original Barbenheimer weekend set a high bar, with Barbie and Oppenheimer combining for a domestic opening of roughly $235.5 million. Beating that mark would require both ‘Avengers: Doomsday’ and ‘Dune: Part Three’ to post enormous numbers on the same weekend, and early signs suggest both films are more than capable of it.

Advance ticket sales have already pointed toward historic demand on both sides. ‘Avengers: Doomsday’ opened presales roughly 65% ahead of the pace set by ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day,’ a film that went on to set the record for the biggest domestic opening weekend ever with $360 million. ‘Dune: Part Three’ has had strong presale momentum of its own, reportedly pulling in around $10 million domestically on its first day of wider pre-sales alone.

Unlike the head-to-head market tracking which individual film outgrosses the other, where ‘Avengers: Doomsday’ has consistently been favored over ‘Dune: Part Three,’ this particular Polymarket contract looks at their combined weekend total against the Barbenheimer benchmark. That distinction matters, since it doesn’t require either film to “win,” just for the two together to outperform what Barbie and Oppenheimer pulled off.

Part of what made Barbenheimer work was the contrast between the two films, a candy-colored comedy going head-to-head with a somber historical biopic, which turned the pairing into an irresistible cultural joke. ‘Avengers: Doomsday’ and ‘Dune: Part Three’ don’t have that same tonal whiplash, since both are effects-heavy sci-fi epics chasing similar audiences.

Even so, the sheer scale of anticipation around both franchises appears to be enough to fuel record-breaking projections regardless of the lack of contrast. Between Robert Downey Jr.’s much-hyped return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Denis Villeneuve closing out his ‘Dune’ trilogy, December 18 is shaping up to be one of the most closely watched release dates in recent box office history.

Complicating matters further, Warner Bros. has secured exclusive IMAX screening rights for ‘Dune: Part Three’s’ opening weekend, meaning ‘Avengers: Doomsday’ won’t have access to those premium format screens domestically during its initial release. Whether that format disadvantage affects Marvel’s numbers enough to matter within the larger “Dunesday” total remains to be seen.

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