'Dune' Tops $40M At Box Office, $15.8M TV Ad Spend For Theatrical/HBO Max Debut

“Dune” continues WarnerMedia’s successful, but controversial, simultaneous theatrical/streaming film openings -- topping the most recent weekend with $40.1 million in U.S. theatrical box-office revenue, according to Comscore.

Warner Bros. spent $15.8 million in national TV advertising beginning September 10, to promote both its theatrical and HBO Max debut of the movie, according to iSpot.tv. For streaming, the movie was only available for the HBO Max ad-free option.

For the most recent key two-week period, the studio spent roughly $6.8 million (with 1,111 commercial airings).

National TV ads were placed primarily on NFL Football and Major League Baseball programming, with Fox, NBC, CBS, ESPN and ABC the top-paid TV beneficiaries.TV ads -- through promotional, on-air non-paid TV messaging -- were seen on sister TV networks TBS (53 airings) and TNT (40 airings).

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Last weekend's big winner -- Universal Pictures' “Halloween Kills” -- earned a decent $14.5 million (1,582 airings) in its second week -- now totaling $73.1 million in U.S. box-office theatrical revenues. National TV spending was at $5.4 million for the last 14 days.

Like “Dune,” “Halloween Kills” also opened in theaters and on a streaming service: NBCUniversal’s Peacock. “Kills” took in $50.4 million on its debut weekend period. Twentieth Century Studio’s “Ron’s Gone Wrong” was the only other major wide release to debut this past weekend at 3,560 locations. "Kills" spent $5.1 million in national TV advertising dollars (1,773 airings).

MGM’s “No Time to Die,” now in its third week, took in $11.9 million, now totaling $120 million. TV spending for the most recent two weeks was $2.4 million (925 airings).MGM has spent $27.2 million in TV ads on the movie, beginning in late 2019. The studio had originally planned “No Time” to open in April 2020, but then was postponed due to the pandemic.

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