When Denis Villeneuve was hired to direct a new adaptation of Dune in February 2017, the French Canadian filmmaker was in the midst of a serious sci-fi hot streak. The announcement came on the heels of his Best Director nomination for Arrival, pound for pound one of the best science-fiction films of the century. Then later that year Blade Runner 2049 made its way to theaters, becoming a rare legacy sequel that lived up to its predecessor. (In true Blade Runner spirit, Blade Runner 2049 also had a hard time at the box office.) If there was any challenge in the genre greater than making a worthy follow-up to Blade Runner, it was trying to adapt something as notoriously unfilmable as Dune. But Villeneuve wasn’t just prepared to tackle Frank Herbert’s seminal novel: He was willing to bet on himself.
In Villeneuve’s view, the source material of the series’ first book was so dense that a faithful adaptation had to be split into two movies. Trying to condense all the events of Herbert’s novel into a two-and-a-half-hour film—introducing the beguiling desert planet Arrakis, interplanetary politics among the Great Houses, a psychedelic compound called spice that’s the most precious resource in the cosmos, and an entire glossary of bizarre terminology—would be too much for a filmmaker to attempt. There was just one problem: Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures had agreed to finance only the first film; the prospect of a sequel was essentially in the hands of the moviegoing public. With all that in mind, you can understand why Villeneuve was among Hollywood’s loudest critics when Warner Bros., reacting to the COVID-19 pandemic, elected to have all its 2021 theatrical releases simultaneously available on the streaming service formerly known as HBO Max. “Warner Bros.’ decision means Dune won’t have the chance to perform financially in order to be viable and piracy will ultimately triumph,” Villeneuve wrote in a spicy op-ed for Variety. “Warner Bros. might just have killed the Dune franchise.”
Heading into the movie’s release, Villeneuve had every reason to worry about the future of his project. But it’s also fair to say that Villeneuve backed himself into a corner by making the first Dune less of a stand-alone story than a cinematic ellipsis. As the Fremen warrior Chani (Zendaya) says to Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet), in what is literally the last line of the film: “This is only the beginning.” If Dune ended up being both the beginning and the premature end of the series, Villeneuve’s admirable self-confidence would’ve been remembered as a tragic self-own.
Of course, he didn’t have to wait long to learn about Dune’s fate: Within a week of the movie’s domestic debut, the sequel was officially green-lit. In all, Dune grossed just north of $430 million at the box office, which, given its availability on HBO Max, was impressive in and of itself. (The movie’s 10 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, weren’t too shabby, either.) The gamble paid off and set the stage for Dune: Part Two to deliver a satisfying conclusion to this intergalactic saga. Surely Villeneuve wouldn’t tempt fate by dangling more narrative threads that couldn’t be resolved without another film in the pipeline, right?
Well, to quote the TV series created by the first filmmaker who adapted Dune to the big screen: It is happening again.
Picking up almost immediately after the events of the first movie, Dune: Part Two begins with Paul and Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson) living among the Fremen. Some of the Fremen naturally distrust the outsiders; others, like the tribal leader Stilgar (Javier Bardem), believe that Paul is the messianic figure who’s been foretold among their people for generations. Paul, for his part, wants to earn the trust and respect of the Fremen through his own actions rather than by embracing an ancient prophecy that is, in actuality, a centuries-spanning propaganda campaign planted by the Bene Gesserit. But Jessica has other ideas: As Paul leads raids against House Harkonnen’s spice harvesters and falls in love with Chani, Jessica travels deeper into the deserts of Arrakis to convert more Fremen to her son’s cause.
Paul fears what will happen if he follows his mother’s wishes: He’s seen visions of a holy war in which billions of people starve and countless others die fighting in his name. Unfortunately, the Harkonnens set off a series of events that eventually force his hand. They attack the northern stronghold of the Fremen until Paul has no choice but to migrate farther south. Reuniting with his mother, he consumes the water of life, a toxic liquid extracted from a drowning sandworm that increases his prescience, and eventually he accepts his messianic destiny. To borrow a phrase memorably coined by my Ringer colleague Brian Phillips, Paul has finally subscribed to Magic Dick Theory.
The Ringer’s Streaming Guide
There’s a lot of TV out there. We want to help: Every week, we’ll tell you the best and most urgent shows to stream so you can stay on top of the ever-expanding heap of Peak TV.
With the Fremen united in following Paul, he leads an invasion of Arrakeen, the capital city of Arrakis, killing the villainous Baron Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgard) and holding Emperor Shaddam IV (Christopher Walken) hostage. Paul then defeats Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen (Austin Butler) in a ritualistic knife fight—not unlike a trial by combat in Game of Thrones—leaving the emperor no choice but to surrender the throne to him. But while the emperor reluctantly concedes power, the Great Houses refuse to accept Paul’s ascendancy; in retaliation, Paul tells the Fremen to “send them to paradise.” Just like that, Paul’s kick-started the holy war he once desperately hoped to avoid.
If Dune: Part Two ended with the Fremen being ordered to attack the Great Houses, it would have put a tidy bow on this story: Paul avenges the fall of House Atreides and the death of his father, with his goal coming at a tremendous cost. But Villeneuve has other ideas. Instead, the final scene of the film sees Chani, feeling betrayed by Paul’s actions, mounting a sandworm and traveling off to parts unknown. It’s not exactly a cliff-hanger on the level of the first Dune’s, but it does make clear that Villeneuve isn’t content with a two-parter: He’s setting up a trilogy.
Villeneuve’s been quite open about wanting to direct a third film that covers Herbert’s second novel in the six-book series, Dune Messiah, in which Paul has established himself as the new emperor of the known universe. (There’s also the small matter of Anya Taylor-Joy’s cameo as Alia Atreides, Paul’s younger sister, who is a key figure in the novels.) But it’s one thing to simply have aspirations to make a trilogy; it’s another flex entirely to basically dare the studio to extend the series not once, but twice. “We’re in a very conservative time; creativity is restricted,” Villeneuve told Time in January. “Everything’s about Wall Street. What will save cinema is freedom and taking risks.” In his own way, Villeneuve is putting Warner Bros. in a position to give him such freedom, even if it means he’s taking a risk by planning a trilogy that needs to be approved at every step of the journey: no small feat at a time when the studio’s parent company is killing its projects for a tax break.
Thankfully, keeping the Dune franchise alive on the big screen has never felt more like a sure bet. Setting aside the overwhelming critical acclaim for Dune: Part Two, the film is expected to have the biggest opening weekend at the domestic box office since October and may well go down as the moviegoing event of the year. No less an authority than Christopher Nolan has compared Dune: Part Two to The Empire Strikes Back: a massive stamp of approval for sci-fi fanatics, and one that tacitly acknowledges there’s more story to tell in Villeneuve’s galaxy far, far away.
If all goes to plan, Dune: Part Two will be just the prelude to an even more epic send-off—one that could cement Villeneuve’s series as the Star Wars of its era. Not unlike George Lucas’s original trilogy, Villeneuve’s Dune started on shaky ground, overcoming a global pandemic and its own studio’s ill-fated streaming strategy to embody what cinema can achieve under the singular, uncompromised vision of a generational auteur.
Contrary to Paul Atreides, I don’t have any otherworldly psychedelics to show me what the future holds—I just know greatness when I see it. And after Dune and Dune: Part Two, it’s clear that Villeneuve has more than earned the right to end the franchise on his own terms.
