The hype for Denis Villeneuve’s sci-fi epic Dune is starting to build up some serious steam following the year-long delay that pushed the premiere date back to October. The movie has a ridiculously good cast that includes Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Jason Momoa and Dave Bautista, who’s been singing the movie’s praises more than anyone else.
Given the enduring popularity of the source material, there’s a heap of pressure on the movie to deliver something memorable. Bautista, who plays the brutal Glossu Rabban, is confident that it will exceed all expectations. “Dune is special. I think people are going to be blown away. It’s going to be one of the most beautiful films that people have ever seen,” he told /Film.
Bautista also thinks that fans of Frank Herbert’s 1965 Dune novel will be satisfied with how details translate to the big screen. “Because they don’t have anything, really, to reference in relation to the books…They’ll have that visual reference. took these characters, he took this world, and he’s taken them off the page and put them on screen. It’s epic.”
And Bautista is well aware of the need to please the diehard fanbase. “The people who are Dune fans, they are so passionate about it,” he told USA Today. “These characters and novels, did them justice and that really comes from him being a lifelong fan.”
Denis Villeneuve will make the difference on the new Dune
Of course, this isn’t the first time Dune has been adapted for the big screen epic. David Lynch attempted it in 1984 with Kyle MacLachlan as Paul Atreides. While it’s found a following as a cult movie, it was far from the epic adaptation fans hoped it would be. With visually spectacular movies like Arrival and Blade Runner 1984 already under his belt, here’s hoping Villeneuve can bring some of that brilliance to Arrakis.
Bautista has worked with Villeneuve before, playing Sapper Morton in Blade Runner 2049. That was a role he was very proud of, and it taught him exactly how particular the director is about his movies. You know what they say: the devil is in the details.
"[Denis Villeneuve], I always say this, and it’s something that’s really hard to convey in words, but how detailed he is in his performance. I wouldn’t have gotten nearly the love that I got from my small part in Blade Runner [2049] if he hadn’t just been all over me as far as performing. Down to the smallest details of how I walked, how I put my glasses on, how I took my glasses off. Just super up-close-and-personal and detailed. I had the most intimate conversations about putting my glasses on. [laughs] The simplest things. But that’s just the kind of director he is, man, he’s just so involved in the performance, which I loved. It was even more so on Dune. I think a lot of that was pressure that I put on myself."
We won’t know how faithful the movie is to the book until it actually comes out, but from the trailer, it appears to have done a great job. It looks stunning, too:
Dune arrives in theaters and on HBO Max simultaneously on October 1, 2021. In the meantime, Dave Bautista stars in Zack Snyder’s Army of the Dead, now streaming on Netflix.
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