Denis Villeneuve Sets Sight on Next Projects: ‘Dune: Messiah’, ‘Cleopatra’, and ‘Rendezvous With Rama’
With Dune: Part Two four weeks away, Warner Bros. is deep in their marketing campaign of what they hope will be a big hit. The studio is very confident in the movie and has already started to screen it to selected press who are supposed to do interviews in the coming weeks. Other members of the media will get to see it over the month of February. But with the sequel to the 2021 film about to come out, the question becomes what will be the next project from Denis Villeneuve?
In a new profile interview with TIME Magazine (via World of Reel), Villeneuve confirmed that he has three projects that he’s working on at the same time. First, there is the third film in the Dune saga, which has been buzzed about for months now and which was contemplated under Timothée Chalamet’s contract. Dune: Messiah would complete Villeneuve’s time in this world, he confirmed, adding: “Going beyond that, even if other directors take over, could be IP overkill.”
The studio is so confident in Dune: Part Two that they are involved in active discussions about the threequel, which Villeneuve would be early-prepping now. WB apparently is eyeing a 2027 release window, Jeff Sneider reported via his newsletter. But Villeneuve has been vocal about wanting to stay out of this world for one film before coming back. Two options have been on the table for years.
First, there is the new version of Cleopatra, which Villeneuve has been circling for over six years. According to TIME, 1917 and Last Night in Soho‘s Krysty Wilson-Cairns is writing the script, taking over for David Scarpa (Napoleon). The project was once in competition with Patty Jenkins’ Cleopatra movie, which was to star Gal Gadot. Jenkins had to depart due to scheduling issues with Star Wars: Rogue Squadron and Wonder Woman 3, with Kari Skogland stepping in. But neither of Jenkins’ films happened, and Skogland’s hiring was the last bit of news we heard about that project. (Charles Roven told The Hollywood Reporter last year that it was still in development, but stalled; Skogland has since shot a Wind River sequel.)
But if Villeneuve wants to do Dune: Messiah in a not-so-distant future, perhaps doing Cleopatra first seems too ambitious. (There were some rumors about Zendaya and Timothée Chalamet headlining that movie, but Villeneuve’s reps apparently shot them down.) Right after Dune: Part One came out, though, Villeneuve’s name was on the news as being attached to another big project: an adaptation of Arthur C. Clarke’s Rendezvous With Rama.
That project is also in the scripting phase, and Villeneuve would apparently be teaming up with Eric Roth once again. Roth, who wrote Killers of the Flower Moon and co-wrote both Dune movies with Villeneuve, had teased a new sci-fi project with Villeneuve last year that sounds a lot like Clarke’s novel: “I just wrote a movie for Denis Villeneuve… We’ll see what ends up happening with it, but it’s about space and time, and it’s very lonely. It’s certainly about eternity.”
We might get more details in the coming weeks. Dune: Part Two is due out on March 1.
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.
