In June 2024, Warner Bros. quietly reserved December 18, 2026 for a new Denis Villeneuve film. That film became Dune: Part Three. Eleven months later, Disney looked at the calendar, moved Avengers: Doomsday back from May and landed on the exact same Friday. Nobody blinked. So now, on December 18, 2026, the biggest superhero team-up in years and the end of the most respected sci-fi trilogy of the decade open head to head. The internet has already named it: Dunesday.
Barbenheimer was a fun accident. This one feels more like two studios staring at each other across a parking lot. Here's where things stand with eight weeks to go.
Tony Stark's actor is back, and this time he's the problem
The headline fact about Doomsday still sounds strange when you say it out loud: Robert Downey Jr. plays Doctor Doom. It's his first Marvel role since Endgame, and the man who built the MCU is now the one trying to tear it down.
Anthony and Joe Russo are directing again, their first Avengers film since Infinity War and Endgame. The cast list reads like someone emptied the Marvel toy box on the floor:
- Chris Evans returns as Steve Rogers
- Chris Hemsworth, Paul Rudd, Anthony Mackie, Florence Pugh, Sebastian Stan and Tom Hiddleston from the current MCU
- The Fantastic Four: Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Joseph Quinn and Ebon Moss-Bachrach
- The original Fox X-Men: Ian McKellen, Patrick Stewart, James Marsden, Rebecca Romijn, Alan Cumming and Kelsey Grammer
The runtime is reportedly around 165 minutes. With that many people to introduce, it'll need every one of them. YouTube commenters noticed the same thing. Under the official trailer, which has passed 81 million views, @hongyun65 predicted that "90% of this movie will just be everyone meeting each other," and nearly 300,000 people liked it. @stevobz had a shorter version: "The most expensive meet and greet in cinematic history."
Sebastian Stan, who plays Bucky, isn't promising a happy ending. He told Decider this month that he hasn't seen the final cut, but added: "I'm sure it's going to be probably heartbreaking, in a lot of ways. We'll see who makes it to the next level." Marvel fans have heard that kind of line before. It usually means tissues.
What about Spider-Man?
This is the question that won't go away, and the honest answer is: nobody official has confirmed anything. Tom Holland isn't on the announced cast list, and none of the trailers show Spider-Man. Reports that he appears keep circulating, but even Wikipedia flags them as unconfirmed.
The timing makes the rumor easy to believe. Spider-Man: Brand New Day opened in July with the biggest weekend in box office history, so Marvel has every reason to keep Peter Parker close. It would also be a plot twist off screen. Holland's wife, Zendaya, is in Dune: Part Three. If he does turn up in Doomsday, the couple would be competing against each other at the same multiplex on the same night. Family dinner would be interesting.
Fans are already writing the scene for Marvel. Quoting Doom's line "You have all lived stolen lives," @InnovationThread joked that Holland's Spider-Man would answer: "My life was not stolen, but completely erased." Fair point, after No Way Home.
Until Marvel says something, treat any Spider-Man cameo as a rumor. If it happens, it'll probably be kept secret until opening night anyway.
Dune's quieter, sharper weapon
Dune: Part Three doesn't have 30 superheroes. It has Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Florence Pugh, Rebecca Ferguson, Anya Taylor-Joy, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin and Jason Momoa back as a resurrected Duncan Idaho. And it has a new villain: Robert Pattinson as Scytale, a shape-shifting Face Dancer plotting against Paul. Villeneuve co-wrote the script with Brian K. Vaughan and pushed the story 17 years past the end of Part Two. He's described it as "more tense, more muscular" than the first two.
Under the trailer on Warner Bros.' channel (39 million views), the mood is close to gratitude. "Completing a movie trilogy of this magnitude within 5 years is insane," wrote @zainzaidi4149, with 86,000 likes. @JohnMushitu went full Fremen: "Denis just straight up gave us a trilogy without waiting for an eternity, and for that my water belongs to him." And @prithvirajchavan2003 had the most practical worry of anyone: "Hans Zimmer about to make my neighbours file a noise complaint."
Funny detail: Florence Pugh is in both films. She plays Yelena in Doomsday and Princess Irulan in Dune, which means whichever ticket you buy on December 18, she wins.
The real battle is over the biggest screens
Here's where Dune pulled a smart move. Warner Bros. secured a three-week exclusive on IMAX screens, so in the US, Doomsday can't play in IMAX until early January. Dune was mostly shot on 65mm, with some sequences on 15/70mm IMAX film, and IMAX holds special early screenings from December 14.
Disney's answer was to invent its own premium label. Infinity Vision, announced at CinemaCon in April, certifies theaters that meet its standards, starting with screens at least 45 feet wide and Dolby sound. It started with 75 certified US theaters and about 300 more worldwide. IMAX's CFO Natasha Fernandes called it "a marketing play." She's not wrong. She's also not unbiased.
Both sides are winning in their own way so far:
- Doomsday reached about $50 million in presales by early September, roughly 100 days before release, with most tickets sold for Infinity Vision screenings. In its first 48 hours, presales ran 65% ahead of Brand New Day, according to TheWrap.
- Dune's IMAX 70mm tickets sold out within minutes in April. A second sale on August 18 crashed ticketing sites and produced long online queues.
One industry forecast puts Doomsday's opening weekend between $260 million and $300 million. There's no comparable public figure for Dune yet, but nobody expects it to beat the Avengers on raw numbers. What it can do is fill every premium seat for three weeks at higher prices, which is a very different way to win.
So which one do you see first?
If you want the big event and a chance to find out if Spider-Man shows up, see Doomsday on opening night. Spoilers for a Marvel film of this size will be everywhere by Saturday morning. In the UK, it opens two days early, on December 16, which helps.
If you care about how a film looks and sounds, go for Dune in IMAX during its exclusive window. Those three weeks are the only time you'll get it on the biggest screens, and the 70mm shows are already hard to find.
I'll admit I'd do Dune first, then Doomsday the next day with my phone on airplane mode until the credits roll.
