Franchises dominate the calendar, but international filmmakers may provide the season’s most enduring stories.
PARIS, FRANCE
The final months of the year will bring an unusually crowded film calendar, combining major studio franchises, literary adaptations, festival winners and several ambitious director-driven projects. The season culminates on December 18, when Avengers: Doomsday and Dune: Part Three open simultaneously. The collision has already acquired the nickname “Dunesday,” echoing the audience-driven double-feature phenomenon created by Barbie and Oppenheimer.
September’s releases include Practical Magic 2, reuniting Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman nearly three decades after the original supernatural comedy. Zach Cregger will attempt to revive another familiar property with a new interpretation of Resident Evil, while Robert Pattinson stars in Primetime, Lance Oppenheim’s first narrative feature. An Oasis documentary chronicling the band’s reunion tour will also move from the Venice Film Festival to cinemas before reaching Disney+.
October offers a mixture of prestige productions and commercial experiments. Alejandro González Iñárritu directs Tom Cruise in Digger, a satire about an oil magnate trying to prevent a catastrophe he created. Aaron Sorkin revisits the consequences of Facebook in The Social Reckoning, with Jeremy Strong portraying Mark Zuckerberg and Mikey Madison playing whistleblower Frances Haugen. Other releases include Taika Waititi’s adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun, the body-horror film Clayface and Andrey Zvyagintsev’s Cannes Grand Prix winner Minotaur.
November expands the international selection with Takashi Yamazaki’s Godzilla Minus Zero, filmed as Japan’s first domestic production designed for IMAX. Martin McDonagh returns with Wild Horse Nine, while James Gray directs Adam Driver, Miles Teller and Scarlett Johansson in the crime drama Paper Tiger. David Fincher’s The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth, written by Quentin Tarantino and starring Brad Pitt, will receive a theatrical run before its streaming release.
December brings La Bola Negra, Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi’s queer historical epic inspired by Federico García Lorca, and Danny Boyle’s Ink, a drama examining Rupert Murdoch’s acquisition of The Sun. Neither festival acclaim nor prominent casts guarantee commercial or critical success, but these productions offer alternatives to the franchise machinery surrounding the season’s conclusion.
The central contest remains Avengers: Doomsday against Dune: Part Three. Marvel is assembling characters from several generations of its cinematic universe in an attempt to restore momentum after an uneven post-Endgame period. Denis Villeneuve, meanwhile, is adapting Dune Messiah to complete his trilogy and confront the destructive consequences of Paul Atreides’ rise. “Dunesday” may become a genuine cultural event, but that expectation remains a marketing narrative until audiences decide whether either film merits the extraordinary anticipation.
Hechos que no se doblan. / Facts that do not bend.