Chani will be “the protagonist” of the second Dune movie

After many delays, Warner Bros. is finally releasing Dune into theaters last this year. Director Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s 1965 sci-fi classic is a big swing for the studio; they’re clearly putting a lot of money into this, and they’ve hired a ridiculous cast that includes big names like Timothée Chalamet, Jason Momoa, Josh Brolin, Dave Bautista, Javier Bardem, Zendaya and more.

Chalamet plays lead character Paul Atreides, the scion on a noble house charged with governing Arrakis, aka Dune, a planet vital to the running of the galactic empire. Long story short: things go sideways, and Paul finds himself named caught up a Chosen One story that will change the lives of hundreds of millions of people.

Meanwhile, Zendaya plays Chani, a member of the Fremen people — the original inhabitants of Dune — and eventually Paul’s love interest. The upcoming movie only covers about half of the original book, so Chani doesn’t show up much, at least not in the flesh; it sounds like she provides narration.

But it sounds like Villeneuve will make up for that in the sequel movie. “I can’t wait to shoot the second part of Dune to get [Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya] back together,” he told Italian magazine Il Venerdì di Repubblica. “Knowing that in the next chapter Zendaya will be the protagonist of the story.”

Is Chani the “protagonist” of Dune? What about Paul Atreides?

This statement is a little confusing, because while Chani definitely has a bigger role in the latter half of Dune, no one who reads the book would call her “the protagonist”; it’s definitely Paul’s story, at least on the page. Villeneuve could change things, of course, but that seems like a huge change, and based on the trailer for the first movie, at least, it looks like he’s trying to stay close to the text of the novel.

I wonder if Villeneuve’s wasn’t exaggerating a bit for effect in that interview, or if he was talking metaphorically, or even if there was a small translation error. I guess we’ll see what he means when we get the second part of Dune, hopefully sooner than later. Frankly, I’m just glad to hear him openly talk about shooting it, since there’s been some ambiguity over whether it would even happen. It may depend on how the first movie goes…

Dune lands in theaters and on HBO Max on October 22.

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h/t Collider