Dune opened over the weekend with a robust $41 million opening but its performance on the HBO Max streaming service was going to be another figure that many would be paying attention to. Warner Bros. has made it clear that its business on the platform would play a key role in Dune getting to finish its story with another film. While HBO Max hasn’t released official data, Samba TV is providing some of the info as to how well Dune‘s streaming numbers fared at home.
Per Samba TV, Dune was streamed in 1.9 million U.S. households between Thursday and its first weekend on HBO Max. This figure puts the film slightly ahead of the 1.8 million U.S. households that streamed Zack Snyder’s Justice League during its opening weekend but below the 2.2 million U.S. households that streamed Wonder Woman 1984 during its first weekend. Mortal Kombat continues to be the champ for Warner Bros. day-and-date performance on the platform as 3.8 million U.S. households streamed the video game adaptation during its first outing. You can check out the Samba TV announcement about Dune on their Twitter post below!
Some might look at this figure and be concerned that it came in lower than some of the other big-budget Warner Bros. releases that went day-and-date such as Mortal Kombat, Godzilla Vs. Kong, and The Suicide Squad but Dune’s opening weekend in theaters outperformed all of those titles which leads me to believe that most people opted to watch Dune in theaters as it was intended. It should also be noted that Samba TV doesn’t offer the total picture of Dune’s streaming performance. It’s a third-party service that only measures certain smart TVs. It’s likely that Dune did even better than this figure but we won’t 100% know for sure unless Warner Bros. releases official data. Some streaming services do this when they want to demonstrate a film’s success but it’s unclear if Warner Bros. will do that with Dune.
Dune follows the son of a noble family that is entrusted with the protection of the most valuable asset and most vital element in the galaxy. Villeneuve has gathered an impressive ensemble cast for the film including Timothee Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac, Josh Brolin, Stellan Skarsgard, Dave Bautista, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Zendaya, Chang Chen, Sharon Duncan-Brewster, Charlotte Rampling, Jason Momoa, and Javier Bardem.
Did YOU catch Dune in theaters or did YOU choose to watch the film at home on HBO Max?