This Friday Dune: Part Two finally hits cinemas, concluding Denis Villeneuve’s epic two-part adaptation of Frank Herbert’s classic sci-fi novel.
Assuming the box office is a success, the director plans to conclude what he has envisioned as a film trilogy, by having Dune 3 cover the events of the sequel book Dune Messiah.
There are further novels but the latter is considered the end of the main story for Timothée Chalamet’s Paul Atreides.
And we can confirm for the press screening that Dune: Part Two ends on a cliffhanger just as Dune: Part One did.
Speaking with South Korean press, Villeneuve shared that Dune Messiah is “being written right now. The screenplay is almost finished but it is not finished. It will take a little time…There’s a dream of making a third movie…it would make absolute sense to me.
Villeneuve had no break between the two Dune movies so would like to make another movie before tackling Dune Messiah,
Dune 3 is yet to be green-lit, as was the case with Dune: Part Two when Dune: Part One was released; with Warner Bros awaiting the box office results.
The director said: “I don’t know exactly when I will go back to Arrakis. I might make a detour before just to go away from the sun. For my mental sanity, I might do something in between, but my dream would be to go a last time on this planet that I love.”
Certainly a longer gap between Dune: Part Two and Dune Messiah would be no bad thing given that the latter novel is set 12 years later. And according to the filmmaker he’s in no hurry with Dune 3’s release date… but the studio might be.
Villeneuve told The Times: “There is absolutely a desire to have a third one, but I don’t want to rush it. The danger in Hollywood is that people get excited and only think about release dates, not quality.”
It’s hard to determine how many years away Dune 3 would be given that both Dune 1 and 2’s release dates were delayed; the former by the pandemic and the latter by the writers’ strike.
But our best bet would be that the trilogy’s conclusion is at least three years from now given the director’s plans to do something else first.
