The release date of Denis Villeneuve’s much-anticipated adaptation of Dune has been delayed until late 2021.

• Read more: Dune: release date, plot details, cast and everything we know so far

The sci-fi epic was set to be released this December, however it will now be almost a year until it hits cinemas.

According to Collider, the film will now be released on October 1, 2021. They cite studio Warner Bros’ recent decision to delay Wonder Woman 1984 until Christmas Day as one of the reasons for the new date.

The first trailer for the adaptation of Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel was revealed last month. It stars Timothée Chalamet as Paul Atreides, the son of a noble family tasked with protecting “the spice,” the most valuable substance in the universe found on the desert planet Arrakis.

The latest high-profile postponement comes after the news that the group behind Cineworld will be closing 127 UK cinemas, as well as all of its US locations, amid uncertainty around movie release dates.

Earlier in the week, the twice-postponed James Bond film, No Time to Die, was pushed back again to April 2021. Following poor ticket sales for Christopher Nolan’s Tenet and Disney choosing to release Mulan straight to its Disney+ streaming platform, studios scared of losses are pulling big-budget releases that cinemas rely on to survive.

NME spoke to a number of UK cinema staff about the closures, who said: “The government and studios have left us to rot.”

Many staff members say they first found out about the closures via social media. “We were literally given a three-day notice period that our jobs were getting flushed down the gutter. We have had absolutely no communication from our CEO throughout this whole mess,” said one staff member.