After weeks of speculation, Denis Villeneuve’s Dune will have its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival on September 3.
has had a lot of luck at the Venice Film Festival, debuting several films — Gravity, A Star Is Born, and Joker — that could have been considered untraditional Oscar fare, but went on to strong awards runs after buzzy festival launches.
And in 2020, when Venice was the only major fall festival to even attempt some semblance of a traditional in-person event during the COVID-19 pandemic, Chloe Zhao’s Nomadland took the Golden Lion, and went on to win the people’s choice award at the Toronto Film Festival.
With a cast of stars that includes Rebecca Ferguson, Timothée Chalamet, Oscar Isaac, Josh Brolin, Stellan Skarsgård, Zendaya, and Jason Momoa, if even just a few show up to walk the red carpet, it should create some buzz.
could be mapping out a path for Dune that’s similar to what it did with Joker, which also played at the Toronto FIlm Festival in September before its early October release date.
The Warner commitment to day-and-date releases brought out the ire of many theater owners and filmmakers, including Villeneuve, who wrote in Variety that Warner’s parent company AT&T had “hijacked one of the most respectable and important studios in film history.” But if Dune can stir up buzz in Venice , the film may get its awards fairy-tale ending anyway.
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