Dune director wants to adapt Dune Messiah for a trilogy, but no more

Director Denis Villenueve made sci-fi nerds very happy in 2021 with his adaptation of Dune, based on the seminal 1965 novel by Frank Herbert. The first movie covered the first half of Herbert’s book; we’ll see the rest in Dune: Part Two, which is due out next year.

Dune: Part Two was originally scheduled for November, but it was just announced last week that the movie has been delayed until March 2024, presumably to allow time for the writers and actors strikes to resolve so that the star-studded cast can help promote the movie. Dune: Part Two features a ton of stars, including Timotheé Chalamet, Zendaya, Jessica Ferguson, Austin Butler, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, Florence Pugh, Dave Bautista, Stellan Skarsgård, and Christopher Walken as the emperor of the whole galaxy. It would be the height of folly to get a cast that stacked and then not have them help market your film.

Actually, the height of folly might be that Warner Bros. Discovery delayed the movie the literal day before Empire magazine dropped a massive cover feature on it. Do the physical copies of Empire magazine have the old release date or the new one? I don’t know but I’m curious.

Anyway, as part of Empire’s coverage, they spoke to director Denis Villeneuve, who talked about his desire to make a third Dune movie that covers the events of Dune Messiah, the second book in Herbert’s series. “If I succeed in making a trilogy, that would be the dream,” Villeneuve said.

Denis Villeneuve has already started writing Dune: Part Three

Part of the reason that Villeneuve wants to adapt Dune Messiah is that it puts a nice capstone on the story of Paul Atreides. “Dune Messiah was written in reaction to the fact that people perceived Paul Atreides as a hero,” the director explained. “Which is not what [Frank Herbert] wanted to do. My adaptation [of Dune] is closer to his idea that it’s actually a warning.”

In the novels Paul essentially becomes the figurehead for a galaxy-wide holy war despite his best intentions to avoid it. So it makes sense that Villeneuve would want to explore that fully in a Dune Messiah adaptation. He even teases that “there are words on paper” already for Dune: Part Three.

However, Villeneuve currently has no plans to adapt any of the Dune works beyond Dune Messiah, of which there are many. “After [Dune Messiah] the books become more… esoteric,” he said. Which…yes. Yes they do.

Dune: Part Two is coming to theaters on March 15, 2024. Probably.

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