‘Dune 3’: Everything You Need to Know
‘Dune 3’ may not be officially confirmed, but given the success of ‘Dune: Part Two,’ which earned nearly $180 million worldwide in its opening weekend, it’s hard to imagine it won’t happen.
The good news is that Denis Villeneuve is already working on a third movie, adapting the book sequel ‘Dune Messiah,’ even though it hasn’t been greenlit yet. The bad news is that he has also mentioned it would be his final Dune film if it does happen.
“We are in early stages. We are in the right direction,” he told Digital Spy in February 2024. “There’s a lot of work that has been done, but there’s a lot of work that needs to be done in order to have something solid to shoot.”
While the first two ‘Dune’ movies were a two-part adaptation of Frank Herbert’s Dune, ‘Dune 3’ is set to be a one-movie adaptation of Herbert’s sequel Dune Messiah.
As we eagerly await any confirmed news, here’s everything you need to know about ‘Dune 3.’
‘Dune Messiah’ takes place 12 years after the original book, and while we wouldn’t expect that long a wait, Villeneuve noted in March 2022 that he wouldn’t rush into making the third movie.
“I want to make part two as fast as possible, then I will wait a few years – until Timothée Chalamet gets a bit older – to do the final installment,” he wrote in Vanity Fair. “I’ve lived with Dune for most of my life. Being patient is part of the journey.” In case you think he’s changed his mind since 2022, he hasn’t. “I just finished Part Two very recently, and I went from Part One to Part Two without even an hour in between,” he told The Hollywood Reporter in March 2024.
“I’m not complaining. I feel blessed to work, of course, but it’s just that I physically need to recover for a couple of weeks. It’s also about making sure that I have the right screenplay. I have four projects on the table currently.
“One of them is a secret project that I cannot talk about right now, but that needs to see the light of day quite quickly. So it would be a good idea to do something in between projects, before tackling Dune Messiah and Cleopatra.”
Cast
So all we can do now is wait for the official confirmation, which might come with a release window attached, like we got with the sequel’s announcement. While we don’t officially know who’s coming back as the movie hasn’t been announced, we can already assume several returns for Dune 3 based on who is in the novel:
Timothée Chalamet as Paul Atreides, Zendaya as Chani, Florence Pugh as Princess Irulan, Charlotte Rampling as Gaius Helen Mohiam, Javier Bardem as Stilgar and Anya Taylor-Joy as Alia Atreides.
The characters of Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), Gurney Halleck (Josh Brolin) and Shaddam IV (Christopher Walken) are only mentioned in ‘Dune Messiah,’ but don’t be surprised if Villeneuve finds a way to bring them into his take on the story.
Stephen McKinley Henderson wasn’t back as Thufir Hawat in the sequel due to Villeneuve focusing on the Bene Gesserit. Maybe Villeneuve can find a way to involve him in the third movie, but he also wasn’t in Dune Messiah.
‘Dune 3’ Plot (SPOILERS)
What happens in ‘Dune Part 3’? Villeneuve stayed fairly loyal to Herbert’s novel in ‘Dune: Part Two,’ but there were some significant changes.
Namely, Chani and Paul are separated at the end of the movie, with her riding off into the desert when Paul starts a holy war, while Paul’s sister Alia is not yet born at the end of the second movie where, by the end of the book, she’s already killed the Baron.
That will likely necessitate some changes in bringing Dune Messiah to the screen, but we can still expect it to be largely faithful to Herbert’s story. ‘Dune Messiah’ is set 12 years after the events of the first novel and sees Paul reckon with the devastation caused by his victory over the Harkonnens, with billions dead as a result of the holy war.
The novel sees Paul attempt to end the fighting as he deals with new enemies and betrayals from former allies, leading to him having to make a choice that could change the future of the entire universe. ‘Dune Messiah’ was written by Herbert as a response to people viewing Paul as a hero at the end of ‘Dune,’ which was not his intention.
Villeneuve’s take on ‘Dune’ has already made that clear, especially in the climax of ‘Dune 2,’ so that could free up the filmmaker to be more flexible when it comes to adapting the story of Dune Messiah for the third movie.
