The spice isn’t the only thing that must flow. Warner Bros. wants actors flowing down red carpets promoting the studio’s biggest releases. However, until a fair agreement can be reached to end the SAG-AFTRA strike, the carpet will remain bare. That’s why Warner Bros. has delayed Dune: Part Two until March of 2024, pushing back from its intended November release. This makes some fans sad but all hope is not loss. They can dream even bigger about the franchise’s future. Director Denis Villeneuve still hopes that whenever his sequel arrives in theaters it’s a big enough success for him to do a third and final film. He wants to finish a trilogy with a movie based on Frank Herbert’s Dune Messiah.
Villeneuve spoke to Empire about his continued goal to make a third Dune film. His “dream” is to adapt Herbert’s second novel. (Like Villeneuve’s first Dune movie, Part Two is based on the author’s original book.) It’s not just a general hope he has, either. He’s done at least some prep work already. Villeneuve said, “There are words on paper.” He hopes to one day bring them to life with moving images.
Fans of Villeneuve’s adaptations will certainly do everything they can to make that happen. This is especially true because Dune Messiah caps off the first book’s story by clearing up any questions of whether Paul Atreides is a hero or not. (If you don’t know about this story, then you’re in for some fun.)
But why stop with just a Dune trilogy? Why not continue his big screen epic with more installments the way Herbert did with his series of subsequent followup novels? Because that’s where the director’s interest in adapting the story ends. He said, “After [Dune Messiah] the books become more… esoteric.”
We have a long wait for Dune: Part Two. But if delaying it means we one day get Part Three, it’ll all be worth it.
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