Timothée Chalamet ruled the weekend box office with two disparate films, Denis Villeneuve’s epic Dune and Wes Anderson’s esoteric The French Dispatch.

Dune, led by Timothée as Paul Atreides, the duke heir of the House Atreides, scored several record bests. The first of what is reportedly two installments being planned marked the best opening for Warner Bros. and an HBO Max day-and-date release.

With Dune’s $40.1 million in ticket sales, WB also collected its highest opening weekend figures since pre-pandemic times. The much-awaited science fiction spectacle, also starring Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac, Zendaya, Jason Momoa, Javier Bardem, Stellan Skarsgård, Sharon Duncan-Brewster and Dave Bautista, set another record – it is Denis’ best debut opening at the North American box office.

Thanks to this latest film adaptation of Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel, Warner Bros. chalked up its eighth release to bow at the top this year.

After making a sensational kill at the box office in the previous week, Halloween Kills suffered a steep drop of -70.6 percent but its $14.5 million revenue was still good enough for second place.

Daniel Craig’s No Time to Die settled for the third spot with $11.8 million. After three weeks, Daniel’s cinematic adieu as a dashing agent of Her Majesty’s secret service has made $120 million in the United States and Canada.

Tom Hardy’s return as Eddie Brock/Venom in Venom: Let There Be Carnage, on the other hand, placed fourth with $9.1 million for a total of $181.3 million.

Box office reporters had a field day writing puns about the animated feature Ron’s Gone Wrong going wrong with a dismal $7.3 million bow. Directed by Sarah Smith, Jean-Philippe Vine and Octavio E. Rodriguez, Ron’s Gone Wrong features a voice cast that includes Zach Galifianakis, Jack Dylan Grazer, Olivia Colman, Ed Helms and Rob Delaney.

Ranking sixth, seventh and eighth were The Addams Family 2 ($4.3 million), The Last Duel ($2.1 million) and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings ($2 million), respectively.

While Timothée’s The French Dispatch ended up at ninth on its opening, as an arthouse film, it garnered the biggest theater average in the COVID-19 health crisis era with $25,000 in only 52 movie houses. That average for Wes’ 2021 Cannes Film Festival entry surpassed the averages of Black Widow and Venom: Let There Be Carnage.

The film, which also top bills Tilda Swinton, Benicio Del Toro, Lea Seydoux, Adrien Brody, Frances McDormand, Jeffrey Wright, Steve Park, Bill Murray, Mathieu Amalric and Owen Wilson, raked in $1.3 million.

Frank Rodriguez, Fox Searchlight Pictures’ SVP-General Sales Manager, heralded the arthouse release’s performance in a statement: “The French Dispatch is a jolt of electricity for the specialty box office, delivering record-breaking results in theaters across the country. These figures show that after a year and a half, arthouse and independent theaters have a superhero of their own in Wes Anderson. What has been doubly encouraging is the crossover results in mainstream theaters hungry for Wes’ tenth film as well. We are thrilled that after several delays, moviegoers said it was worth the wait.”

Still making it to the top ten was Ryan Reynolds’ Free Guy which netted $258,000.

Internationally, Dune was still reaping epic earnings. The futuristic sci-fi grabbed $47.4 million and hit the $200 million global benchmark. Helping the Villeneuve movie hit that goal was its $21.9 million start in China, where it became the first big Hollywood title to be released in that territory since Free Guy.

But Dune’s opening figures in the world’s biggest movie market were still not enough to topple the homegrown The Battle at Lake Changjin from its top position which it has held for many weeks now. The so-called propaganda film has now earned $830 million.

Venom 2 also held well offshore with $38.3 million and spurred the Andy Serkis-directed action-adventure to cross the $350 million global mark.

Not to be outdone, No Time to Die achieved two milestones – it crossed both the $400 million offshore and $500 million global benchmarks. Daniel’s final 007 adventure is the second Hollywood movie to join the $500 million global club since 2019. Vin Diesel’s F9 is the first with $716.5 million so far.