When the news broke that Marvel Studios and Warner Bros. had both scheduled their massive 2026 event movies, Avengers: Doomsday and Dune: Part Three, for release on the same day (December 18), it was generally assumed that WB would move Denis Villeneuve's sci-fi threequel out of the path of what might well turn out to be the biggest MCU movie yet.
However, insiders believe that Warner Bros. has no intention of changing Dune 3's release date, which means we need to prepare for Dunesday!
According to both Matt Belloni on The Town podcast and Jeff Sneider on The Hot Mic, WB is adamant that they are staying put, since they "claimed the date first and have confirmed they’re not budging." WB's decision to dig in, batten down the hatches and go head-to-head with Doomsday suggests they're hoping to replicate the success of Barbenheimer, but this would be a much riskier gamble.
Barbie and Oppenheimer were very different movies targeting very different demographics, but there is a lot more overlap with the audiences for Doomsday and Dune 3. We're sure many moviegoers would look forward to the experience and plan double-bills (though it's worth keeping in mind that both of these movies are likely to exceed a 3-hour run-time), but at the end of the day, it's difficult to imagine any film going up against Doomsday and coming out on top.
Some believe WB will ultimately blink and movie Dune 3 up the calendar to October or November, but for the time being, they are holding their ground.
Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars were recently hit with significant delays, with Doomsday now set to arrive in theaters on December 18, 2026, and Secret Wars positioned for December 17, 2027.
Both movies will be directed by the Russo brothers, who also make their MCU return after helming Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame.
"Being able to create stories and explore characters within the Marvel Universe fulfilled a life-long dream of ours, and we discovered a powerful connection with audiences in each film that we made. We’re thrilled to collaborate once again with Kevin, Lou and the entire Marvel team to bring this epic adventure in storytelling to new and surprising places for both the fans and ourselves”, said The Russos in a statement after the SDCC panel.
Doomsday will star:
Paul Rudd as Ant-Man, Simu Liu as Shang-Chi, Tom Hiddleston as Loki, Lewis Pullman as Sentry, Florence Pugh as Yelena, Danny Ramirez as Falcon, Ian McKellen as Magneto, Sebastian Stan as Bucky, Winston Duke as M’Baku, Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Kelsey Grammer as Beast, James Marsden as Cyclops, Channing Tatum as Gambit, and Wyatt Russell as U.S. Agent
Along with Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm, Rebecca Romijn as Mystique, Patrick Stewart as Professor X, Alan Cumming as Nightcrawler, Letitia Wright as Black Panther, Tenoch Huerta Mejia as Namor, Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards, Hannah John-Kamen as Ghost, Joseph Quinn as Johnny Storm, David Harbour as Red Guardian, Ebon Moss-Bachrach as The Thing, Anthony Mackie as Captain America, and, of course, Robert Downey Jr. as Doctor Doom.