To refine what I meant, I was trying to say I think Dune is more of a technical win candidate then an overall winner on the acting or story side of the Oscars. Sometimes they win both but this time I think we could see more of a split
Yeah I don't expect Dune to win may Oscars (of any) outside tehnical ones. Unfortunately that's how it goes when it comes to sci-fi movies.We have come a long way in budgets, I remember Titanic was gigantically expensive at 200m.
Titanic was the most expensive movie for something like 10 years and it really stood out back in those days. It paid off though as it was the highest grossing movie until Avatar came. I always look at the ratio of the rough return they got, this doesn't exclude extra such as franchise rights for models/toys possibly etc. which can be massive.
Of course, there is a lot of money to be made from dvds, blurays, streaming rights, toys etc. One thing to keep in mind is that when we see that some movie grossed let's say $500 million, that doesn't mean that all that money goes to them as you have to deduct percentage that cinemas take and others in that chain so realistically what's left is maybe 50% of the box office, at best. 
