IMAX cameras start to roll on Dune: Part III

It's official: production has begun on Dune: Part III. So says a tweet from the franchise's official account:

The first two Dune movies, based on Frank Herbert's 1965 sci-fi novel, were a huge success. People have been adapting Dune to the screen for decades, and there have been some noble efforts, but it took writer-director Denis Villeneuve to really nail this story about a young nobleman named Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) who travels to a desert planet and becomes an unlikely messiah to the local people, and eventually the emperor of the known universe. The cast is stacked, the movies look spectacular, and everyone is excited for Part Three.

Dune: Part Three will adapt Dune Messiah, Herbert's 1969 sequel to his original opus. Messiah is weirder and more intimate than the original Dune, and could only have gotten made if there was already a lot of goodwill. I'm a little afraid this strange new chapter will burn through some of it, but I also trust Villeneuve and his team; they've earned that.

If you can believe it, the new movie may look even better than the first two. That's because Dune: Part Three will be filmed entirely on IMAX cameras, as IMAX CEO Richard Gelfond confirmed during an interview with CNBC. Dune: Part Three is only the second movie in history to do this; the first is Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey, which is scheduled to come out next July. According to World of Reel, IMAX cameras used to be too bulky, loud and inefficient to shoot a whole movie with, so directors had to reserve them for when they wanted a shot to look especially spectacular. In part because of prodding from directors like Nolan, the camera technology has improved, and now these lighter, quieter IMAX cameras can be used more easily.

The panoramic shots of Arrakis already looked beautiful in Dune: Part Two. Villeneuve is a guy who knows his way around spectacle, and I expect him to take full advantage of the opportunities afforded by these new cameras in Part Three. I want wall-to-wall shots so beautiful and expansive they'll make me cry into me popcorn. If the movie industry is wondering how to lure people away from streaming services and into the theater, this could be key.

Timothée Chalamet shaves his head for Dune: Part Three?

Meanwhile, paparazzi snapped some interesting photos of Timothée Chalamet in St. Tropez this past Monday. He was wearing a baseball cap pulled low over the front of his head and a green handkerchief tied under his chin and pulled over the back. We can't say why exactly he was wearing this, but folks noticed that the hair at the nape of his neck was much shorter than usual. Has Chalamet shaved off his locks in favor of a buzzcut? And does it mean anything that it happened now, with filming on Dune: Part Three getting underway?

The obvious interpretation is that Chalamet shaved his head for the movie. Dune Messiah takes place years after the end of Dune, after Paul Atreides has established himself as emperor. Apparently he took a razor to his hair sometime during the interim. The emperor can have whatever haircut he wants.

Dune Messiah doesn't make any specific mention of Paul's hair, so this is probably a choice on the part of the producers to mark the passage of time, and fair enough.

There's no official release date set for Dune: Part Three as of yet, but it looks like Warner Bros. Discovery is targeting a December 2026 release. I'll definitely try to see in it IMAX.

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