“I Have the Script Memorized.”
Meet the superfan who’s already seen Dune: Part Two 14 times.
After a couple of shaky years, “event movies” are starting to make their return. There’s no greater proof of this than Dune: Part Two, which had the most successful opening weekend of 2024 so far. Part of that success came from one of the movie’s biggest fans: a person who has turned a love of Dune into an all-encompassing hobby — and there’s no sign of him stopping any time soon.
Mac J., who asked that we not use his last name, has been posting on Twitter every time he watches Dune in IMAX. As of writing, he’s on round 14 in IMAX with no plans of stopping yet. As his number of watches grow, so does the attention from other users.
“People have been telling me to get Twitter Blue, but I need to save that money for Dune.”
“It’s been so confusing. I don’t know why it’s getting so much traction,” he tells Inverse. “People have been telling me to get Twitter Blue, but I need to save that money for Dune.”
Mac read Dune for the first time in 2018 and instantly was hooked. When Denis Villeneuve was announced as the director of a new theatrical adaptation, that love soon spread to the filmmaker as well. He was in high school when Dune: Part One was released, and that’s when the obsession grew to another level. “I saw it like 20 times in theaters and over 200 on streaming,” he says. “Rewatching Dune became a hobby of mine.”
Mac’s Letterboxd history is exclusively Dune since the sequel’s release.
Repeat viewings are nothing new: any glance at the movie logging app Letterboxd shows plenty of viewers who watch the same movie multiple times, sometimes even daily. But Mac watched Dune so often that he gave up trying to log it every time. “I used to keep a tally sheet of when I would rewatch, but I stopped at 100 and that was in 2022,” he said.
Dune became the soundtrack to his entire life. “I didn’t have the busiest social life in high school and I would spend most of my time reading or studying,” he says. “It often became something I would just put on in the background or just sit down and watch.” Eventually, it became so ingrained he was able to replicate the experience even without a screen. “I have the script memorized and used to write it out in school when I got bored.”
Fast forward to 2024, when Dune: Part Two finally hit theaters. Mac is now in college pursuing an English degree, but that’s not getting in the way of another round of Dune pilgrimages. “It needs to be seen in IMAX,” he said. “I watched it in standard and it wasn’t the same at all. I can’t imagine watching it in streaming.” He’s even going on a road trip to catch one of the few 70mm IMAX showings.
“It needs to be seen in IMAX,” Mac says of Dune: Part Two.
At this point, it’s routine. With Regal’s Unlimited program, a once-daily IMAX ticket is only a handful of bucks. But that hasn’t stopped him from going twice daily four times now: he’s saved up money to buy as many tickets as possible. But marathon viewing requires strategic preparation. “My first two showings, I paid for concessions but I can’t afford that anymore,” he said. “I just bring in food like raisins or granola bars.”
“I think the story of Dune, if you look past all the complicated sci-[fi] aspects, has a story for everyone.”
So what is it about Dune that keeps him coming back? “I pick up new things each time, Denis Villeneuve’s movies are always so rich in detail,” he says. “I also love the sound design. It’s addicting.”
Mac’s devotion is just an extreme example of the universality not only of Dune’s popularity, but sci-fi blockbusters in general — movies so big you can rewatch over and over and keep figuring out new things. “I think the story of Dune, if you look past all the complicated sci-[fi] aspects, has a story for everyone,” Mac says.
