Denis Villeneuve Confirms Dune 3 Will Be His Final Film In The Franchise

Regular your sandworms and sound the area bagpipes — Dune information coming by way of! It has been an fascinating few months for followers of the DCU (that is the Dune Cinematic Universe), with affirmation coming again in April {that a} Dune Half Three is formally within the works at Legendary, after which additional stories in June inserting an ‘Untitled Occasion Movie’ from director Denis Villeneuve in Warner Bros.’ slate for December 2026. Now, in an interview with Vainness Truthful for his or her “Little Gold Males” podcast, Villeneuve has confirmed that Dune: Messiah is at present being written — and, extra importantly, the Quebecois filmmaker’s third journey to Arrakis may also be his final.

When requested about his progress on a follow-up to Dune: Half Two, Villeneuve — who says he sees Dune: Messiah as its personal factor and his first two Frank Herbert variations as a self-contained diptych (“It isn’t like a trilogy”) — revealed his need to exit the franchise while leaving the door open for different filmmakers. “Hear, if Dune: Messiah occurs, it can have been a few years for me on Arrakis, and I might like to do one thing else,” mentioned Villeneuve. “I feel that it could be a good suggestion for me to make it possible for, in Messiah, there are the seeds within the undertaking if somebody needs to do one thing else afterwards, as a result of they’re stunning books. They’re tougher to adapt. They turn out to be increasingly more esoteric.” For anybody who has learn Herbert’s additional Dune novels post-Messiah, esoteric often is the understatement of the century. (And for anybody who hasn’t, please do Google them!)

However while Villeneuve and the spice could also be set to move in numerous instructions within the close to future, the ever-busy filmmaker — who elsewhere tells Vainness Truthful he “know[s] do” Messiah‘s important 12-year time leap — is not heading off on his jollies anytime quickly. On the similar time a 3rd Dune was introduced, we additionally discovered that Villeneuve’s gearing as much as sort out Annie Jacobsen’s speculative non-fiction e-book Nuclear Conflict: A Situation. And on the “Little Gold Males” podcast, Villeneuve name-checked each his long-gestating Arthur C. Clarke adaptation Rendezvous With Rama (“that screenplay is slowly transferring ahead”), and confirmed he is nonetheless engaged on his even-longer-gestating Cleopatra film too. Once we’ll truly see any of those movies is anyone’s guess for now, however till we hear extra, we’ll simply have to maneuver with the move of the method. We should be part of it. We should move with it…