Denis Villeneuve’s Dune films are about as star-studded as movies come, featuring actors like Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Josh Brolin, Rebecca Ferguson, Dave Bautista, Javier Bardem, Austin Butler, Florence Pugh, Stellan Skarsgård and Christopher Walken, just to name a few. Not all of them will survive through the films. Already, we saw Jason Momoa’s Duncan Idaho and Oscar Isaac’s Duke Leto Atriedes bite the dust in the first Dune movie.
There’s a lot of anticipation to see how things play out in Dune: Part Two, and Timothée Chalamet, who plays burgeoning messiah Paul Atriedes, isn’t shy about revealing details. After all, the original Dune novel by Frank Herbert came out in 1965, so the spoilers are out there.
According to Gizmodo, Chalamet recently dropped a pretty major spoiler for Dune: Part Three, before questioning what the point was of holding back spoilers for such a well-established science fiction series. Still, if you are avoiding SPOILERS for future Dune films, turn back now.
Duncan Idaho (Jason Momoa) will return in Dune: Part Three
During a recent conversation with MTV about Dune as well as his new film Wonka, Chalamet casually referenced that fact that Jason Momoa’s character Duncan Idaho won’t be in Dune: Part Two…but would return for Part Three. This came as a shock to host Jason Horowitz, because Idaho was killed by Harkonnen assassins during the first movie.
Denis Villeneuve spoke recently about being “almost finished” with the screenplay for the third Dune film, which is based on Herbert’s novel Dune Messiah. In that book, Idaho returns as a “Ghola,” aka a clone which is sent to assassinate Paul Atriedes. Idaho is cloned numerous times throughout the series, and his conflicting memories serve as a major plot point in Dune Messiah and beyond.
That book came out in 1969; not quite as long ago as the original Dune novel, but pretty close. Close enough that Chalamet sees no point in playing coy about spoilers. “It’s so weird, because are so secretive about the script, and about the trailer… well, have been out there for 70 years!”
The guy has a point; I also don’t see any point in trying to be secretive about the plot of the first few Dune books. It’d be like getting mad at someone for telling you that Gandalf comes back in The Lord of the Rings, or that Luke fights Darth Vader. Even the studio doesn’t seem to be that worried. There are glimpses of the final scene of the Dune novel in the latest trailer for Dune: Part Two. They know what they’re doing.
But hey, both Chalamet and I are coming from the privileged position of already being familiar with the books. What do you think? Should people working on adaptations of 60+ year old works have to be careful not to spill the beans? Or is that madness?
Timothée Chalamet’s Wonka is #1 at the box office
Regardless, Chalamet has a bit more time until he’s back on Arrakis. Right now, his new film is Wonka, a prequel movie about the early days of the famous fictional chocolatier. Wonka is getting off to a solid start at the box office, pulling in around $39 million at the domestic box office ($156 million worldwide) against its $125 million budget. This bodes well for the movie considering that it’s a musical, which studios typically consider a hard sell for general audiences. Wonka marks Chalamet’s second #1 movie opening, following Dune.
Fortune notes that part of Wonka’s opening numbers being good probably has to do with the fact that it’s the first big Hollywood movie since the SAG-AFTRA actors strike where the actors have been able to do promotions. Chalamet hosted Saturday Night Live in November, where he busted out a rendition of the Wonka song “Pure Imagination,” singing about “returning to this magical world where actors can promote their projects.”
Wonka is in theaters now. Dune: Part Two releases on March 1, 2024.
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