There was a lot of buzz surrounding the release of Dune: Part Two, and this highly-anticipated sequel lived up to the hype. Denis Villeneuve’s space epic easily topped the box office with a $178.5 million worldwide opening, scoring the highest opening weekend of 2024.

The release date of Dune: Part Two was pushed to March 1, 2024, in the face of strikes in Hollywood, and this proved to be the right decision. With $81.5 million grossed domestically and an additional $97 million in other territories, Dune: Part Two knocked it out of the park during its opening weekend with a worldwide total of $178.5 million.

Dune: Part Two did exceptionally well on IMAX, with $18.5 million of the domestic ticket sales coming from the IMAX screenings. Rich Gelfond, CEO of IMAX, said that the only reason why that number wasn’t higher is because they ran out of seats.

“The lesson is that if you take a beautiful visual experience, a good story and you put it in the hands of a brilliant filmmaker with an IMAX camera, you’re going to get very good results,” said Gelfond in a statement to CNBC.

Dune: Part Two had the largest opening weekend of 2024 so far, and it almost doubled the domestic gains of the first film. Villeneuve is currently plotting the third film in the trilogy, based on Frank Herbert’s novel Dune Messiah.

There was a lot of buzz surrounding the release of Dune: Part Two, and this highly-anticipated sequel lived up to the hype. Denis Villeneuve’s space epic easily topped the box office with a $178.5 million worldwide opening, scoring the highest opening weekend of 2024.

The release date of Dune: Part Two was pushed to March 1, 2024, in the face of strikes in Hollywood, and this proved to be the right decision. With $81.5 million grossed domestically and an additional $97 million in other territories, Dune: Part Two knocked it out of the park during its opening weekend with a worldwide total of $178.5 million.

Dune: Part Two did exceptionally well on IMAX, with $18.5 million of the domestic ticket sales coming from the IMAX screenings. Rich Gelfond, CEO of IMAX, said that the only reason why that number wasn’t higher is because they ran out of seats.

“The lesson is that if you take a beautiful visual experience, a good story and you put it in the hands of a brilliant filmmaker with an IMAX camera, you’re going to get very good results,” said Gelfond in a statement to CNBC.

Dune: Part Two had the largest opening weekend of 2024 so far, and it almost doubled the domestic gains of the first film. Villeneuve is currently plotting the third film in the trilogy, based on Frank Herbert’s novel Dune Messiah.