2026 has been a great year for science fiction, from the return of acclaimed shows like Silo and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, to unexpected hit movies like Project Hail Mary, Zach Cregger's Resident Evil and more. But for as good as the first 10 months of the year have been on the sci-fi front, things are about to get even better. Two of the biggest releases in the genre just dropped new marketing materials on the same day, and the signal to start getting hyped couldn't be clearer.
Let's start with television. On November 25, Prime Video will debut its Blade Runner 2099 limited series, which expands the world of Ridley Scott's iconic 1982 film in bold new ways. Long gone are the days when humans controlled the Earth and replicants tried to find a way to just survive; now, the replicants call the shots, and humans are an endangered species. That hasn't solved the age-old problems plaguing the replicants, however, like how their limited lifespan gels with their sense of mortality and inconvenient human tendencies.
It should hopefully be a solid watch that stands on its own, so you can check it out whether you're a diehard Blade Runner fan or a newbie. Here's the new poster for the series:
I love how this poster calls back to the style of the original film's artwork. Blade Runner 2099 stars Hunter Schafer as Cora, a human who has to go undercover to team up with the replicant Olwen (Michelle Yeoh). Olwen has only days to live and a drive to discover why replicants have been going missing, setting up a noir detective story that should make us feel right at home in the used future of Blade Runner.
Dune: Part Three posters arrive a day before a new trailer
Yet while I'm excited for Blade Runner 2099 and love getting some new artwork for it, the even bigger deal in the sci-fi space today is that Denis Villeneuve's upcoming film Dune: Part Three also unveiled a slew of new posters, ahead of a trailer drop tomorrow, October 27.
The space messiah Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) has come a long way since he led the Fremen people in taking back their planet from the vile Baron Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgård). After launching a holy war across the stars, Paul is now the emperor of the known galaxy, leaving behind a trail of death across his 17 years of rule that is unparalleled in human history. The third film in Denis Villeneuve's trilogy will adapt Dune Messiah, which is all about the toll of Paul's reign. And from our first poster, it's obvious that toll has been great on Paul himself, at least:
That's Paul in the present, his eyes scarred and glowing from his addiction to spice, the rare substance from the planet Arrakis which grants humans prescience and powers starships. Obviously, Paul's looking a bit worse for wear; don't take my word for it, check him out in this other poster, which presumably shows him before the war, with his lover, Chani (Zendaya):
We saw a glimpse of this scene in an earlier trailer for the movie, where Chani and Paul are batting around name ideas for their baby. Paul suggests Ghanima for a girl; Chani, Leto if it's a boy. If you've read Dune Messiah, you know that the pair actually have twins, and those are their names. We know that older versions of Ghanima and Leto were cast for Dune: Part Three, but how the movie will make sense of that timeline, or whether they'll just appear in visions, remains to be seen.
Chani has also had a rough run of it, since parting ways with Paul at the end of Dune: Part Two after he entered into a marriage of convenience with Princess Irulan (Florence Pugh). Here she is again, looking pretty broken up. Who is she holding, as she's overcome with emotion in this shot?
My guess would be Paul, or perhaps one of their children, but there's not too much to go on...for now. Perhaps the trailer will give us a clearer idea.
We mentioned Princess Irulan above; she features on one of the new posters as well, caked up in what looks like mud:
Why is Irulan covered in mud? Your guess is as good as mine. But no matter what's going on in this particular image, I'm expecting Irulan to play a much larger role in Dune: Part Three than she did in the second film. She is at the forefront of Dune Messiah, present both in Paul's life and in scenes involving a cabal of characters who are interested in undermining his rule. I have a feeling Villeneuve and Pugh's version of the character is going to bring some surprising new dimensions from the original text.
One of the conspirators I mentioned also gets a poster; it's Robert Pattinson as the enigmatic Scytale:
Scytale is a member of the Bene Tleilax, a reclusive society of beings who are into gene manipulation and cloning. He's what's known as a Face Dancer, meaning he can change his appearance at will. Pattinson has already had a bang up year with films like The Odyssey and Primetime, but we could be about to see him give one of his weirdest turns yet. Scytale is already prone to wild shifts as a character in the book; with an actor like Pattinson behind him, I'm hoping those attributes are turned up to 11.
Our next poster features Jason Momoa, who played Duncan Idaho in the first Dune movie. The rub of course is that Idaho met a grisly demise there, fighting off Sardaukar warriors so that Paul and his mother, Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson) could make good their escape.
Without going into the full blown spoilers for how Momoa is back, let's just say that this is not the Duncan Idaho that viewers — or Paul — remember. Instead, he's a ghola, a genetically altered being brought to life in the flesh of Idaho before he had fully decomposed. This guy's name is Hayt, and he brings a certain existential crisis into Paul's life that will shake the emperor to his core. It's a dynamic that stands to be one of the most interesting in the movie.
Here's the most shocking poster of them all. That's Anya Taylor-Joy as Alia Atreides, Paul's younger sister. Taylor-Joy had a brief cameo in Dune: Part Two, where baby Alia underwent the ritual to become a Reverend Mother while still in Lady Jessica's womb. As such, she was born with the knowledge of centuries, a prescience and unnatural life experience that goes far beyond what is normal even for a Bene Gesserit.
Alia is all grown up in Dune: Part Three, and by this point in the story, she's one of Paul's closest confidantes. She has her own sect of worshippers, who call her Saint Alia of the Knife — though the reason they gave her that name may need to change in the movie, since it stems back to her childhood during the war to uproot the Harkonnens from Arrakis during the book, which she was not yet born for in the screen adaptation.
This shot of Taylor-Joy shrieking while covered in blood is chilling to look at. I really hope we find out what it's all about soon, because I need to know!
We end our journey through Dune posters with a somber one. Above we get a shot of Stilgar, played by Javier Bardem. Stilgar is a stout Fremen warrior and leader, who was one of the first to truly support Paul's rise. He remains one of Paul's closest allies in Dune Messiah, but from the looks of shots like this one, it seems likely we'll see Paul and Stilgar actually going to war in the period of time before the main events of the film, where they conquered much of the known galaxy. What effect will those experiences have on Stilgar and Paul's relationship, I wonder?
Dune: Part Three premieres in theaters on December 18, 2026. Keep an eye out for the new trailer, coming tomorrow!
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