Producers of Dune threaten to sue if film forgoes standalone cinema release

The producer of Denis Villeneuve’s eagerly-awaited Dune remake, Legendary, are reportedly threatening to sue if the film does not see a standalone cinema release.

Deadline report that the company, which funded 75% of the movie, was “blindsided” by the move from the movie’s distributor, Warner Bros, to redirect its 2021 slate of movies to a “hybrid” release.

With a hybrid release, movies will arrive in cinemas and on streaming service HBO Max on the same day.

The report also claims that talent reps are “fighting with Warner Bros for back end compensation” that they say would have been earned had the company not opted for earlier streaming releases.

Dune was initially scheduled for global release on December 18th - now altered to October 1st, 2021.

The film stars Timothée Chamalet, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Javier Bardem, Dave Bautista, Jason Momoa and Oscar Isaac, and is based on the 1965 Frank Herbert novel of the same name.

The decision from Warner Bros has been criticised by Christopher Nolan, Judd Apatow, Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins, and Villeneuve himself.

In a Variety essay (published on December 10th, 2020), the Dune director said there was “absolutely no love for cinema, nor for the audience” in the choice to stream the movies on the same day.

“It is all about the survival of a telecom mammoth, one that is currently bearing an astronomical debt of more than $150 billion,” Villeneuve said.

“Therefore, even though Dune is about cinema and audiences, AT&T is about its own survival on Wall Street. With HBO Max’s launch a failure thus far, AT&T decided to sacrifice Warner Bros.’ entire 2021 slate in a desperate attempt to grab the audience’s attention.”

Nolan was also infuriated by the move, telling The Hollywood Reporter: “Some of our industry’s biggest filmmakers and most important movie stars went to bed the night before thinking they were working for the greatest movie studio and woke up to find out they were working for the worst streaming service.”