Denis Villeneuve won't direct a Children of Dune movie, but someone should

Director Denis Villeneuve has done what many for years thought was impossible: adapted Frank Herbert's 1965 novel Dune into a coherent movie that has people excited for the upcoming sequel. He did this by using his artist's eye to translate Herbert's challenging prose into a moody, captivating aesthetic. He did this by stacking the 2021 Dune movie back to front with big names, including Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, and Dave Bautista. And he did it by taking care not to get burned out.

Dune: Part Two, which is coming out next month, will adapt the back half of Herbert's original novel, which tells the tale of a noble-born boy named Paul Atreides who becomes a messiah to the native people of Arrakis, a desert planet better known as Dune. Herbert wrote five more Dune books after the original before dying in 1986, whereupon his son Brian Herbert continued the series. Villeneuve is interested in adapting the second book in the series, Dune Messiah, as a movie, which would round out his trilogy. But he wouldn't go beyond that. "Dune Messiah should be the last Dune movie for me," he told TIME.

That means that Villeneuve isn't interested in adapting the next book in Herbert's series, Children of Dune, nor the three that follow: God Emperor of Dune, Heretics of Dune and Chapterhouse: Dune. He's devoted years of his life to this franchise and I understand if he wants to get out after that, but it would be a shame if Villeneuve didn't get to use his talents to adapt at least Children of Dune, which truly brings to an end the story started in the original Dune book.

Why Warner Bros. should adapt Children of Dune with or without Denis Villeneuve

Villeneuve has occasionally talked about Dune Messiah bringing an end to the story of Paul Atreides, the young man who becomes a leader of the course of the first book, played by Timothée Chalamet. (“He has those very aristocratic features," Villeneuve says of his star. "You feel a strong intelligence in the eyes. And he looks very young onscreen, and I needed that youth, that candor, that vulnerability—that young man who was struggling with his identity, trying to find a spot.”

While Dune Messiah definitely marks an important part of Paul's journey, the real end to his story doesn't come until Children of Dune. I won't spoil things explicitly, but this is the last of Herbert's books that involve the original characters we came to know in the first Dune. Paul's mother Lady Jessica, played by Rebecca Ferguson in Villeneuve's movie, plays a large role. So does Gurney Halleck, played by Josh Brolin. A few characters we won't meet onscreen until Dune: Part Two are central to the plot of Children of Dune.

Children of Dune is very much about Paul's legacy. After that, God Emperor of Dune jumps forward literally thousands of years into the future and introduces a (mostly) new cast of characters, so I understand Villeneuve not feeling the need to adapt that one. But while I'm sympathetic to his desire to do other things after Dune Messiah, I wished he'd reconsider sticking around for Children of Dune, large an undertaking though it is.

In that TIME interview with Villeneuve, author Stephanie Zacharek opines that adapting anything beyond Dune Messiah, with or without Villeneuve, "could be IP overkill." I disagree very strongly with that, in part becuase we have many good examples these days of what IP overkill looks like. Last year, Marvel Studios released three majors superhero movies and as many TV series, and I'm not counting specials and Marvel-adjacent movies like Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. Adapting the third Dune book in the Dune series by the original author of Dune does not approach IP overkill.

Plus, Children of Dune is regarded as one of the better books in Herbert's series, usually ranked by fans as second only to the first. It's like the first Dune in a lot of ways. Whereas Dune Messiah sees Paul go on an intensely insular journey, the characters in Children of Dune frolic in the desert sands, plot against each other, and at least one (beware SPOILER incoming) merges with a sandworm to become some new kind of part-man-part-worm monster. Intrigued, Villeneuve?

Children of Dune has been adapted to the screen before, with a young James McAvoy playing Leto II Atreides in the 2003 TV miniseries Frank Herbert's Children of Dune. Unlike God Emperor of Dune, Heretics of Dune and Chapterhouse: Dune, all of which get increasingly bizarre, Children of Dune is pretty easy to picture as a movie, although its size likely means splitting it up into at least two parts.

I don't expect Villeneuve to stick around after Dune Messiah, which will hopefully happen sooner rather than later. But I think Warner Bros. Discovery would be silly not to hire someone new to adapt Children of Dune. And if Dune: Part Two, which releases in theaters on March 1, ends up being as big a success as it seems destined to be, I think that'll eventually happen.

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