“Dune – Part two”, the great success of an arthouse blockbuster

At the beginning there was a challenge that was anything but simple: to bring “Dune” back to the cinema following several unsuccessful experiments, especially given the enormous difficulty of adapting the novels of Frank Herbert, an American writer who in 1965 had the first book of a revolutionary saga for science fiction literature is in print and will also influence many cinematographic products, starting with “Star Wars”, a franchise that will open with its first feature film in 1977.

Alejandro Jodorowsky tried during the Seventies to bring “Dune” to the big screen, but without success and the beautiful documentary “Jodorowsky’s Dune” was based on that experience in 2013.

David Lynch instead managed to make it in 1984, but in a version that did not satisfy the director himself (the production intervened by making numerous cuts) nor much of the critics and the public, who responded decidedly lower than expected.

Denis Villeneuve has chosen to relaunch this project with a first film in 2021 and this sequel confirms that the Canadian director did very well in accepting this new challenge: he had already demonstrated that Villeneuve did not lack courage with “Blade Runner 2049 ”, a (very successful) sequel to a masterpiece like “Blade Runner” from 1982, but in this case it raises the bar of its ambition even further.

The proceeds

Arriving in theaters just over a week ago, “Dune – Part Two” started off strong and in Italy alone it came close to grossing 4 million euros at the end of the first weekend of programming. In the United States, the first week brought in more than 80 million dollars, becoming the biggest success since last October, when the box office was dominated by the concert film “Taylor Swift-The Eras Tour” with 93 million dollars. Globally and always considering the same time period, “Dune – Part Two” has exceeded 178 million dollars and positive word of mouth might soon make the numbers grow exponentially.