Denis Villeneuve Developing ‘Nuclear War: A Scenario’ For Legendary After ‘Dune: Messiah’
What will Denis Villeneuve work on after Dune: Part Two? That’s been one of the most discussed questions in entertainment news over the past month, especially after the roaring success of the pretty-out-there sequel, which has nearly reached $650M worldwide and has the studio over the moon about it.
It was reported last year that WB and Legendary had plans for a Dune threequel, which would adapt Frank Herbert’s Dune: Messiah and conclude the story of Paul Atreides. Denis Villeneuve even confirmed those plans during the press tour for Part Two. Despite that, he’s been a bit unsure about when to return to Arrakis, and the impression has been that he’d be taking on a different project first.
Deadline is now reporting that Villeneuve has attached himself to the adaptation of Pulitzer Prize-finalist Annie Jacobsen‘s nonfiction book Nuclear War: A Scenario, which was just optioned by Legendary, the production company behind the Dune movies that has now a deal under Sony Pictures. Interestingly, the trade is adding that Villeneuve will work on it after completing Dune: Messiah. It’s still unclear whether he’ll be directing, or simply producing.
Nuclear War: A Scenario poses the question of what would happen in the event of a nuclear war to dozens of experts with enough knowledge of how the weapons were made and the response plans to such a crisis. They describe it as a spiritual sequel of sorts to Oppenheimer, which also dealt with some of those fears, and would act as a cautionary tale inside an increasingly divided global political atmosphere.
The fact that they say Villeneuve will work on it after the Dune threequel seems to indicate that that movie would be Villeneuve’s next priority. We know for sure that it is of great concern to WB and Legendary, who want to build upon the momentum carried by the second movie, and probably want to get to it before the in-demand cast moves on. But it’s all on the director now. He’s been attached to a Cleopatra movie for ages, and this was apparently considered as a possible in-between project. Likewise, he was also supposed to direct an adaptation of Arthur C. Clarke’s Rendezvous With Rama, but we don’t know what’s happening with that either.
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.
