“That’s the first I’ve heard of that”: how Fatboy Slim predicted ‘Dune: Part Two’
Denis Villeneuve has named a litany of inspirations as impacting the look and feel of Dune and its sequel in one way or another. Still, as of yet, he’s yet to give due credit to British DJ Fatboy Slim for predicting the future almost two decades before the release of Part Two.
The filmmaker gathered a stellar ensemble for the first half of his epic Frank Herbert adaptation. That meant the pressure was on for the sequel to do the same when it came to gathering new additions to join Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, and the rest of the gang on Arrakis.
Rising to the occasion, Villeneuve recruited another two of Hollywood’s brightest and Academy Award-nominated young talents, Florence Pugh and Austin Butler. At the same time, the inimitable Christopher Walken was finally cast in a role suitable for a man of his legendary standing as Shaddam IV, colloquially and affectionately known as the Padishah Emperor of the Known Universe.
For those of a certain age with a fondness for early-2000s big beat and iconic music videos, their ears immediately pricked up. Hadn’t the man born Norman Cook predicted this exact scenario – or at least something closely resembling it – in 2001 when the Spike Jonze-directed video for ‘Weapon of Choice’ premiered? Remarkably, he had.
The acclaimed video – which scooped six MTV Video Music Awards, including ‘Breakthrough Video’, ‘Best Direction in a Video’, and ‘Best Choreography in a Video’, starred none other than Walken dancing around a hotel. He leapt from wall to wall like some kind of ageing Spider-Man and generally cut some seriously fantastic shapes.
Admittedly, it doesn’t have a whole lot to do with Dune superficially. Still, the lyric “walk without rhythm and you won’t attract the worm” is lifted almost verbatim from Herbert’s novel. Some of Walken’s more eccentric dance moves are reminiscent of the way the Fremen carefully navigate the sands of Arrakis in an effort to avoid being swallowed whole by a sandworm.
It was a bizarre turn of events when Walken was cast as the most powerful man in the universe for Part Two, not that he paid much attention to such an incredible coincidence. “It never crossed my mind, but you’re right,” the Academy Award winner admitted to GQ, coming to the conclusion that the “very interesting guy, the Fatboy Slim guy, must’ve read the book.”
Still, Walken wasn’t one for putting two and two together, admitting, “That’s the first I’ve heard of that. You telling me right now is the first time I’ve heard that.” There’s an exceedingly high chance it won’t be the last, though, with video editors presumably waiting with bated breath for Dune: Part Two to be awarded a post-theatrical release so that they can begin splicing together the Fatboy Slim/Dune mashups many of them will have been waiting over 20 years to make.
