‘Dune: Part Two’ Described as a War Movie by Denis Villeneuve, Who Reiterates Intention of Adapting ‘Dune: Messiah’
Timothée Chalamet as Paul Atreides in Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Two. Image via Empire Magazine.
On Thursday, Warner Bros. delayed Denis Villeneuve’s upcoming Dune: Part Two from November 3 to March 15, 2024. However, that didn’t prevent Empire Magazine from running with their coverage of the film in their latest issue, out this Thursday. In addition to debuting two new pictures so far, the publication sat down with Villeneuve, director and co-writer of the film, to talk about Part Two and even the potential of a Part Three.
The sequel to the 2021 critical and global hit (it made $400M in the middle of the pandemic) was never guaranteed by the studio to the filmmaker. Warner Bros. told Villeneuve that they would greenlight the adaptation of th second half of Frank Herbert’s novel only if the film was deemed successful. (Although, with the convoluted 2021 that WB had with their filmmakers, the sequel was probably gonna happen either way.) But Part Two is now in post-production and the director couldn’t be happier about it. He explained to Empire that the first movie was all about setting up the big, war movie that is coming to theaters soon:
“The first movie was more contemplative – a young man discovering a world. Here, it’s a war movie. At the very core is a love story between Paul and Chani. How Paul will gain her trust, how she will open her heart to him, and how they will find a way to free Chani’s world from the Harkonnen grip. It’s a much more emotional movie.”
This will be the completion of the arc that Timothée Chalamet started with the first movie; as Villeneuve explained, the actor was already trying to implement some flavor from the larger-than-life character that Paul Atreides becomes in the book — the liberator known to Arrakis’ indigenous population, the Fremen, as the Muad’Dib:
“I remember when I was doing Part One, I kept saying to Timothée, ‘No, you’re just Paul.’ Because he was reaching for Muad’Dib. He was looking forward to becoming that hero and I was pushing the brakes. He has the power to change things, but he knows that if he does so, it will create an astronomical amount of violence and he will become a kind of dictator. He’s trying to find a way to avoid that ominous future – that’s the burden upon his shoulders.”
But in Part Two, Paul will face a few challenges both mentally and physically as well — the biggest example of the latter will be the brutal Feyd-Rautha, played in the film by Elvis‘ Austin Butler (so far, it looks like we will have to wait until opening night to see if the actor still talks like Elvis in the new film). It’s around him that the marketing takes an ominous turn, teasing the mysterious figure but always leaving the audience with a desire to see more.
(L-R) Austin Butler as Feyd-Rautha and Léa Seydoux as Lady Fenrig in Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Two. Image via Empire Magazine.
Are all of his scenes in black and white, like the trailer seems to hint at? Probably not, because Empire also debuted a new (colored) image from the movie featuring Feyd-Rautha and another new addition to the ensemble, Léa Seydoux’s Lady Fenring. But talking to the publication, Villeneuve still kept some aura of mystery around him, when he said the following:
“Austin brought something that is a cross between a psychopath killer, an Olympic sword master, a snake, and Mick Jagger. He has tremendous sex appeal and charisma and madness. It’s really out there.”
But Villeneuve also left a lot of mystery unsolved around Seydoux’s character, who is a member of the Bene Gesserit:
“I don’t want to talk too much about Lady Fenring. She’s part of the spider web of the Bene Gesserit, but I want to keep the mystery around her. My version of ‘Dune’ is different because the thing that really seduced me about the book was the Bene Gesserit. My adaptation is more oriented toward their impact – they are the puppet masters of the universe!”
As with any new movie, there is always the question looming over the people involved: What are you doing next? If there is franchise potential to this, is another movie the works? If not, what is next for you as a creative mind? Well, Denis Villeneuve has been joining a variety of projects over the past few years, from a Cleopatra movie that will probably never happen (he circled the remake before signing on to Dune), to an adaptation of Arthur C. Clarke’s Rendezvous With Rama, to an HBO series with Jake Gyllenhaal (with whom he already worked on Enemy) titled The Son, apparently shooting this fall.
(L-R) Zendaya as Chani and Timothée Chalamet as Paul Atreides in Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Two.
But Villeneuve had said after Dune came out in 2021 that he would be interested in also adapting Frank Herbert’s sequel book, Dune: Messiah. That quote has apparently been lost to time, but that didn’t prevent reporters from bringing it up again. Earlier this year, Deadline reported that Part Two was the middle chapter in a planned three-movie arc, and when asked by Empire Magazine about a potential adaptation of Messiah, Villeneuve was cryptic about it:
“If I succeed in making a trilogy, that would be the dream. ‘Dune Messiah’ was written in reaction to the fact that people perceived Paul Atreides as a hero, which is not what he wanted to do. My adaptation [of ‘Dune’] is closer to his idea that it’s actually a warning.”
“I will say, there are words on paper,”
But don’t count on Villeneuve adapting all six books: “After [‘Messiah’] the books become more… esoteric.” Villeneuve will likely take a break from Arrakis after working on the two features for the past five years. His HBO miniseries seems to be next, but I don’t expect it to be long after that that he returns to Timothée Chalamet and their third film in the trilogy.
Timothée Chalamet as Paul Atreides in Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Two. Image via Empire Magazine.
Miguel Fernández is a Spanish student that has movies as his second passion in life. His favorite movie of all time is The Lord of the Rings, but he is also a huge Star Wars fan. However, fantasy movies are not his only cup of tea, as authors like Scorsese, Fincher, Kubrick or Hitchcock have been an obsession for him since he started to understand the language of filmmaking. He is that guy who will watch a black and white movie, just because it is in black and white.
