Dune: Part Two may have been delayed to next year, and a lot of fans think this will mark the end of the adaptations of Frank Herbert’s seminal book. What’s interesting is, director Denis Villeneuve actually wants the franchise to be a trilogy.
Talking to Empire, Villeneuve says that he wants to adapt Dune Messiah, Herbert’s follow-up to the original Dune. Villeneuve explains:
“If I succeed in making a trilogy, that would be the dream… Dune Messiah was written in reaction to the fact that people perceived Paul Atreides as a hero… Which is not what he wanted to do. My adaptation [of Dune] is closer to his idea that it’s actually a warning… After that the books become more… esoteric.”
As of now, there hasn’t been anything announced about a sequel, but Villeneuve is already preparing. He couldn’t go into much detail, but he does confirm, “I will say, there are words on paper.”
It has been said that Dune was considered unadaptable by movie standards since the property was more about ideas and thoughts rather than action, but you can’t deny that the world-building is definitely fantastic, and there are still spectacles to be had with the story.
It was actually surprising for a lot of audiences that a Dune sequel was greenlit, given how niche science fiction has become as a genre. I guess the studio is really hoping that if the IP isn’t enough to bring people in, then the star power of Timothee Chalamet, Zendaya, Florence Pugh, and the rest probably would.
Dune: Part Two is set to hit cinemas on March 15, 2024.
