The cast and crew of the first two Dune movies will soon reunite to film Dune: Part Three, the third and final movie from director Denis Villeneuve. But based on this news, I don't think it'll be the final Dune movie that Warner Bros. Discovery makes.
First, some background: Dune: Part Three will adapt Frank Herbert's 1969 book Dune Messiah, which picks up some 12 years after the events of Dune. Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) is established as the ruler of the known universe. He's still in a relationship with Chani (Zendaya), but it's complicated by his political marriage to Irulan (Florence Pugh), the daughter of the emperor Paul deposed. Irulan is working with a network of conspirators to bring down Paul's reign from the inside.
Keeping spoilers to a minimum, the story ends with the birth of Paul's twin children: Leto II and Ghanima. Dune Messiah ends with Leto II and Ghanima still infants. But now, Deadline reports that the pair will be played by Nakoa-Wolf Momoa and Ida Brooke respectively, and they are not infants.
What's happening here? Well, when Nexus Point News wrote up this story earlier today, before Deadline reported it, they said there will be a time jump at some point, and we'll see what Leto II and Ghanima look like as teenagers. That seems to set up the events of Children of Dune, the next book in Herbert's saga. In Children of Dune, Leto II and Ghanima are the main characters. Denis Villeneuve has said that Dune: Part Three will be the last Dune movie he directs. But if that movie is giving us a glimpse at an older Leto II and Ghanima (I'm betting the time jump comes at the very end), my bet is that WBD wants to continue the saga after he's gone.
Or maybe Denis Villeneuve has changed his mind and will stay on for Dune: Part Four; right now, it's all up in the air. Again, I don't want to give anything away, but Leto II ends up being hugely important in the book after Children of Dune, and his impact is felt on the books after that. So it's a big deal that an older version of him has been cast.
Right now, we don't even know if Nakoa-Wolf Momoa and Ida Brooke actually would play Leto II and Ghanima in this hypothetical Children of Dune movie; maybe they'll just appear in cameo form at the end of Dune: Part Three. Something to note is that, in Children of Dune, Leto II and Ghanima are both 9 years old, whereas Nakoa-Wolf Momoa and Ida Brooke are teenagers. But I wouldn't blame WBD if they wanted to age the characters up a bit; it can be risky to pin a major motion picture on child actors, if indeed WBD is planning another major motion picture.
As for the actors themselves, Nakoa-Wolf Momoa is the son of Jason Momoa, who will return in Dune: Part Three as Duncan Idaho...sort of. You may recall that Duncan Idaho died in the first Dune movie; a lot of things are possible in this sci-fi world. This will be Nakoa-Wolf's first big screen role. Is he up to the task? We'll find out when the movie comes out sometime next year. Ida Brooke has more experience, having starred in Apple's sci-fi drama Silo and the movie The Primrose Railway Children.
This is a big deal! Given the success of the first two Dune movies, I never really doubted that WBD would want to adapt the rest even if Denis Villeneuve leaves the franchise after Part III, but this is the closest thing we've got to confirmation that they are indeed thinking that way.
I hope they go for it, and I hope they choose the right team for the job. Children of Dune is a meaty, dense, fun sci-fi book that could make a great movie. After that, things get a little more esoteric and weird, but we don't have to worry about that for a while.
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