Winter is Coming
Fansided

Elvis star Austin Butler may play Feyd-Rautha in Dune: Part II

By Dan Selcke

PARIS, FRANCE - OCTOBER 04: Austin Butler wears a white ribbed t-shirt, a pale blue blazer jacket, matching pale blue suit pants, outside the Stella McCartney show, during Paris Fashion Week - Womenswear Spring Summer 2022, on October 04, 2021 in Paris, France. (Photo by Edward Berthelot/Getty Images)
PARIS, FRANCE - OCTOBER 04: Austin Butler wears a white ribbed t-shirt, a pale blue blazer jacket, matching pale blue suit pants, outside the Stella McCartney show, during Paris Fashion Week - Womenswear Spring Summer 2022, on October 04, 2021 in Paris, France. (Photo by Edward Berthelot/Getty Images) /
facebooktwitterreddit

It looks like Dune: Part II is staffing up. Earlier this week, we reported that Florence Pugh may be joining the cast of the sci-fi sequel as Princess Irulan, an important character in the story of Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet). Now, Deadline reports that up-and-comer Austin Butler may play Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen, another key figure. It’s all coming together!

The first Dune movie adapted roughly half of Frank Herbert’s landmark sci-fi novel, but didn’t have room to include characters like Irulan and the dastardly Feyd-Rautha, the nephew of the equally dastardly Baron Harkonnen. Feyd is a nasty piece of work and represents one of the final hurdles Paul has to clear before the story is over. It’s a juicy villainous role.

Austin Butler’s name isn’t huge just yet, although it may soon be. After breaking out as Tex in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, he was cast as the lead in Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis biopic. If playing the King doesn’t supercharge your career, I don’t know what will.

Feyd-Rautha was famously played by Sting in David Lynch’s 1984 adaptation of Dune, where he wore this:

Give us weird sci-fi underpants or give us death.

Warner Bros. is looking to expand the “Dune universe”

In other Dune news, screenwriter Jon Spaihts talked to The Playlist about the future of the Dune Cinematic Universe, because that is what Warner Bros. is hoping to make. The sequel movie could potentially be just the beginning. There’s also a TV show about the Bene Gesserit in development, and possibly more beyond that.

“[The television show] is carrying on and I’m not allowed to talk about it very much. But that effort is alive and well,” Spaihts said. “I ended up getting moved off of it to work, not just on Dune: Part 2, but to investigate other cinematic prospects in the Dune universe, which we are still talking about and which, again, I’m not allowed to say very much about. But it is a very rich world in which to play, and I think it is ripe with opportunities for storytelling in every direction.”

After Dune: Part II, director Denis Villeneuve may well adapt Dune Messiah, the next book in Herbert’s series. “Dune Messiah is a very interesting book, which in some ways, deconstructs Dune and plays as a cautionary tale, even more than Dune does, about the dangers of blending religion and politics, the hazards of following charismatic leaders and the dangerous struggle that’s always alive between the individual and institutions,” Spaihts said.

And there are several more books beyond that if Warner Bros. really wants to go for it. But let’s see how Dune: Part II does first; that movie is scheduled to come out on October 20, 2023.

Next. Let’s overanalyze George R.R. Martin’s cryptic message about frogs. dark

To stay up to date on everything fantasy, science fiction, and WiC, follow our all-encompassing Facebook page and sign up for our exclusive newsletter.

Get HBO, Starz, Showtime and MORE for FREE with a no-risk, 7-day free trial of Amazon Channels

Home/Dune