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Denis Villeneuve continues his desert adventure in Dune: Part Two, a sequel that will introduce a new cast of characters along with familiar actors from the first film. Dune boasts a stellar ensemble, including Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac, Zendaya, and Jason Momoa. The film grossed over 400 million at worldwide box offices against a production budget of 165 million. Dune was also nominated for ten Oscars, taking home six. The first movie expertly establishes the lore of Frank Herbert's seminal 1965 novel, focusing on House Atreides and their perilous transition to Dune's desert planet Arrakis. Dune: Part Two looks to expand on the scope of the first entry with further nuance and coinciding introductions to new characters.

While a two-part story has always been Villeneuve's vision for adapting Herbert's first Dune novel, a sequel wasn't confirmed until a few days into the first film's opening week at the box office.

The last 24 hours saw an extraordinary game of awards movies playing musical chairs. Sony’s “A Man Called Otto” with Tom Hanks exchanged its Christmas wide release plan for a limited one — a dupe of the plan initially embraced by Damian Chazelle’s “Babylon” (Paramount), which was originally intended as a Christmas Day platform release with expansion January 13. Now this starry epic about scandalous old Hollywood is now going wide in over 3,000 theaters starting December 23.

The wide release is not a standard pattern for awards titles, but a lot has changed since the last conventional awards year of 2019. Even the Oscar strategy isn’t immune to the changes in the exhibition landscape.

Previously, a platform release for “Babylon” would have opened on multiple screens at the Arclight Hollywood and The Landmark. Those two Los Angeles theaters had a unique potential to generate massive grosses, giving films an immediate boost.

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