Why is every movie trying to look like Dune 2?

Unless you've been living under a sand dune (sorry), you've probably heard that Dune 2 is here, and it's a hit. The sandy sequel has enjoyed rave reviews over the last few days – and it's so popular that it seems other movie studios are trying to ride the hype.

In the last two days we've seen not one, but two examples of anthropomorphised CGI animals getting their Dune on. (Is that a phrase? It is now.) First Dreamworks released a Dune-inspired trailer for Kung Fu Panda 4, and now we have a Garfield poster set, apparently, in Arrakis. Suddenly those Barbenheimer posters don't seem so strange.

The Kung Fu Panda 4 trailer, titled Sand & Spice, features Po walking across the dunes of Arrakis, doing his best Paul Atreides impression, before revealing a bowl of dumplings, saying, “Just the right amount of spice” ('The spice' is a fictional drug in the Dune universe). 

And then there's the Garfield poster, which features the titular cat apparently using Arrakis as an enormous litter tray. This one gets bonus points for mimicking the Dune typeface (which has faced its own fair share of mockery over the years). The poster was shared on X by production company Alcon entertainment.

While the ads are obviously lighthearted, it's curious that two major movies have done the same thing here. Up until recently, any mention of the competition would be regarded as a complete 'no-no', but has the furore around Barbie and Oppenheimer changed that? Both managed to ride on one-another's coattails last summer, and both were hugely successful. Could this spell the start of movie characters getting all self-referential about their box office foes?