Dune is finally here, and it’s pretty fantastic. Director Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s classic sci-fi novel is slow, steady and absorbing, an old-fashioned epic packed with the hottest Hollywood talent.
The movie has done well, too, so well that Warner Bros. greenlit a sequel. And the movie needs a sequel, because it only covers the first half of Herbert’s 1965 book. Dune: Part 2 will come out in October of 2023. While it’s good to have a release date at all, that’s a while to wait between halves of a story.
Villeneuve himself agrees. “It’s fantastic news, but it’s also kind of a burden,” he told The Hollywood Reporter. “The good news is that a lot of the work has been done already regarding design, casting, locations and writing. So we’re not starting from scratch. It’s not a long period of time, but I will try to face that challenge because it’s important for me that the audience sees Part Two as soon as possible. It’s not a sequel where it’s another episode or another story with the same characters. It actually has direct continuity to the first movie. It’s the second part of the big huge movie that I’m trying to do. So the sooner the better.”
Villeneuve doesn’t think that filming will start until the fall of 2022, which is about how fast you can move on a huge production like this. That said, he’s energized to take on the challenge. “To know that people are enjoying the movie and that the movie has created enthusiasm, it does give me the necessary energy to do Part Two,” he said. “Even from a very egocentric point of view, that joy gives me energy. That’s what I will say. If it was the opposite and nobody had shown up to the theater, I don’t know where I would find the necessary stamina to face the challenge of Part Two.”
Dune director wants to make a trilogy…but no more
And after Dune: Part Two is over, then we might be able to wait a bit, because the next book in Herbert’s series — Dune Messiah — doesn’t pick up until years afterward. Villeneuve is eager to get to that one, too. “If things go well with Part Two, I could foresee the idea of maybe doing a third movie, Dune Messiah. That would make sense to me,” he said.
Superfans out there will know that there are several Dune books after that: Herbert wrote four more — Children of Dune, God Emperor of Dune, Heretics of Dune and Chapterhouse: Dune — before his son Brian took over; he’s still writing Dune books today.
That said, Villeneuve doesn’t seem as interested in adapting those. “I always envisioned three movies,” he told Entertainment Weekly. “It’s not that I want to do a franchise, but this is Dune, and Dune is a huge story. In order to honor it, I think you would need at least three movies. That would be the dream. To follow Paul Atreides and his full arc would be nice.”
"Herbert wrote six books, and the more he was writing, the more it was getting psychedelic. So I don’t know how some of them could be adapted. One thing at a time. If I ever have the chance to do Dune: Part Two and Dune Messiah, I’m blessed."
It’s true that the Dune books get weirder the longer they go on. That said, I think Children of Dune could make for a good movie, or even a pair of movies; it still has an adventure story vibe to it. God Emperor of Dune is where it gets really challenging; that one revolves around the titular character, a giant human-sandworm hybrid who has ruled Arrakis for millennia. And the fifth and sixth books are stranger still.
But like Villeneuve said, one thing at a time. Let’s get to Dune: Part Two first.
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