Denis Villenueve is Convinced WB Killed the Dune Franchise with HBO Max Deal

A lot of people were waiting to see what happened to Wonder Woman 1984 after it would be released in theaters and HBO Max on the same day, but WB had jumped the gun and announced that their entire 2021 slate would be coming to the streaming service. This was met with immediate backlash from filmmakers like Christopher Nolan, and now Dune's Denis Villeneuve talks about how WB had killed the potential of his franchise.

Credit: Legendary

Writing on Variety, Villeneuve opens up about how he sees that the HBO Max deal was AT&T's attempt to try and get stocks up for the failed streaming service. He writes:

Streaming services are a positive and powerful addition to the movie and TV ecosystems. But I want the audience to understand that streaming alone can't sustain the film industry as we knew it before COVID. Streaming can produce great content, but not movies of "Dune's" scope and scale. Warner Bros.' decision means "Dune" won't have the chance to perform financially in order to be viable and piracy will ultimately triumph. Warner Bros. might just have killed the "Dune" franchise.

To add insult to injury, it was even said that WB had not given the heads up to Legendary that they would be releasing their major blockbusters on HBO Max until the public announcement, and it's said that they would even pursue WarnerMedia legally after the debacle. With Legendary spending most on Dune, it would only be right that they would have the say on how it was released.

Admittedly, it's not exactly known how it's going to go down, but maybe there is some chance that this could still work. Despite hopes that theaters would be up and running by fall next year, it's still not a guarantee. We all thought the pandemic would have died down by June and boy, were we wrong. Hopefully, there's still time for WB to alter the release model, depending on how Wonder Woman 1984 performs when it comes out on Christmas Day.

In the meantime, Dune is set to hit theaters on October 1, 2021.

Read Also: Legendary Allegedly Pursuing Warner Bros Legally for Releasing Dune on HBO Max