Dune 3 IMAX 70MM Tickets Are Being Resold With An Unhinged Price Hike
by Jeremy Smith · /FilmWe may receive a commission on purchases made from links.
If you're opening a massively expensive tentpole feature theatrically in 2026, you are leaving money on the table if you don't claim a two-week-or-longer IMAX release window. There are only 1,800 IMAX screens on the planet, and yet the premium production/exhibition format still accounted for $1.28 billion at the global box office in 2025. It's not make-or-break ("Lilo & Stitch" and "Jurassic Park: Rebirth" did just fine without an IMAX run), but the format did account for 20% of the domestic opening weekend gross for "Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning." It's important.
Moviegoers have long known IMAX offers the most immersive theatrical experience. Now that it's widely advertised that filmmakers can shoot whole movies with IMAX cameras, the demand to see films in this format is exploding. IMAX and exhibitors know this, so now they're juicing anticipation by putting select, prime time tickets on sale months in advance. And this in turn has inspired scalpers to test the resale market for opening weekend tickets.
Christopher Nolan's "The Odyssey" set this potentially horrific precedent for moviegoing by selling tickets to opening day IMAX screenings a year in advance. Predictably, they sold out in a jiffy. Now, "Dune: Part Three" followed suit by making 7pm screenings over its December 17-20, 2026 opening weekend available earlier today. These are only for IMAX 70mm screenings (at a mere 19 locations), which would be hot tickets regardless. As with "The Odyssey," these showtimes sold out within minutes.
Fret not: There will be other 70mm IMAX screenings for "Dune: Part Three." But if you absolutely, positively need to see it at 7pm on opening weekend, you're in luck! All you need is $2,100 and a complete absence of sense.
IMAX could save exhibition, but not at these prices
Within minutes of the first batch of "Dune: Part Three" tickets selling out, some enterprising eBay users offered up primo seats for preposterous prices. The most insane listing was for three tickets at the AMC Metreon 16 in San Francisco. Great theater! But shelling out $2,100 when you could find an off-peak showtime a week later would be the height of stupidity. Perhaps this madly ambitious user was hoping to rook a wealthy techbro. If so, I admire their chutzpah.
That listing has since been pulled (for now), but if you're a friendless, rich New Yorker, someone's selling one ticket to the Lincoln Square 13 IMAX screening of "Dune: Part Three" for $950. The row and seat number are in the listing, so if you follow through with this purchase, know that, if it sounds like people are laughing at you, they are. This pair of tickets in Indiana is going for a cool grand.
I doubt IMAX and the studios are taking these listings seriously, but they're obviously well aware of the steadily increasing demand. They need to start exploring market expansion posthaste. Right now, the closest IMAX 70mm theater to me is three-and-a-half hours away. There are other big cities that are closer, but they only have digital IMAX. That's a great presentation to be sure, but there's no way I'm seeing Nolan's "The Odyssey" at one of those theaters (even if it's equipped with a laser projector). "Dune: Part Three?" Just certain segments were shot with 70mm cameras, but I'd love to see how those desert expanses measure up to "Lawrence of Arabia."
Long term, I do worry that, if there isn't a concerted effort to at least double the number of IMAX screens worldwide, the company will jack up ticket prices for the existing venues. $2,100 isn't a reasonable expectation, but $100 could be.