Denis Villeneuve confirms ‘Dune 3’ will be his farewell
Denis Villeneuve, the director of the two recent Dune movies, has confirmed that a third based on the book, Dune Messiah, is currently in the works, and he’s at the helm of the project. However, he has also revealed that this will be his last outing for the franchise.
Moreover, Villeneuve has made it clear that he doesn’t believe the third movie will definitively be the end of the Dune franchise, given there is so much source material for people to draw from. He acknowledges it will be harder as the storylines become more haphazard, but he thinks once he finishes directing the third instalment, the door will be left open for more movies afterwards.
“First, it’s important that people understand that for me, it was really a diptych,” the director confirmed when discussing the first two films on Vanity Fair’s Little Gold Men podcast, “It was really a pair of movies that will be the adaptation of the first book. That’s done, and that’s finished. If I do a third one, which is in the writing process, it’s not like a trilogy. It’s strange to say that, but if I go back there, it’s to do something that feels different and has its own identity.”
It will be fascinating to see how Villeneuve goes about making the next Dune movie, as Dune Messiah is set 12 years after the events in the recent film. Subsequently, the cast would need to be aged up to stay true to the characters from the source work.
Villeneuve’s taking on a third movie won’t come as a surprise to many people as he has always expressed an interest in making a third film to round off his story. The sci-fi series by Frank Herbert has a number of books that follow the next installment, and Villeneuve has given his blessing to other directors to take over and continue adding to the franchise once he leaves. He stated he would intentionally leave things open-ended so it’s easy for people to pick up the story.
“Listen, if Dune Messiah happens, it will have been many years for me on Arrakis, and I would love to do something else,” the director said, “I think that it would be a good idea for me to make sure that, in Messiah, there are the seeds in the project if someone wants to do something else afterwards because they are beautiful books.”
Villeneuve also highlighted the difficulties that could come with further adaptations of the books, “They are more difficult to adapt. They become more and more esoteric. It’s a bit more tricky to adapt, but I’m not closing the door. I will not do it myself, but it could happen with someone else.”
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