‘Dune: Part Three’ IMAX ticket rush crashes AMC, Fandango sites

Fans trying to lock down premium seats for “Dune: Part Three” ran into a wall of site crashes and server errors Tuesday as a new wave of IMAX 70mm tickets went on sale for the film’s December opening.

IMAX had told fans in an email last week to expect a second ticket drop Tuesday at 9 a.m. PDT, promising more access to “Insider Screenings” and urging them to “get ready to return to Arrakis.” When the window opened, AMC’s and Fandango’s apps buckled under the traffic, and moviegoers described being locked out entirely or dumped into hourlong queues before being told screenings were sold out.

AMC Chief Executive Adam Aron acknowledged the breakdown afterward, saying, “We thought we were ready, but we weren’t.” Some fans who couldn’t get through the queues turned to the secondary market, with early “Dune: Part Three” IMAX tickets showing up on eBay for as much as $1,000.

The chaos echoed a similar rush in June, when advance sales for Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” overwhelmed AMC’s booking systems, producing the chain’s strongest premium-format presale in four years and its own round of hourlong waits. That earlier rush, like Tuesday’s, was driven largely by demand for IMAX 70mm film screenings — a format currently available at just 25 U.S. theaters, out of 36 locations worldwide.

Fans vented widely on social media Tuesday, with one user asking whether every ticketing site for the film’s IMAX 70mm showings had gone down at once, and others posting screenshots of error messages and multi-hour queue timers. AMC and Fandango did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

“Dune: Part Three” closes out Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s novels, picking up 17 years after the previous film with Paul Atreides (Timothee Chalamet) ruling the galaxy while married to Princess Irulan (Florence Pugh). The film, also starring Zendaya and Jason Momoa, opens Dec. 18.