Dune: Part Two delighted fans, critics, and novelty popcorn bucket collectors, and obviously Warner Bros. was thrilled with the results. But there’s so far been no announcement regarding a production start on Dune Messiah, assumed to be the next entry in Denis Villeneuve‘s Dune trilogy. The director needed a break after Dune: Part Two, of course, but he’s also pulling back on the notion that the current Dune films starring Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya are part of a trilogy at all, actually.
Speaking to Vanity Fair, Villeneuve—who has dedicated years of his life to adapting Frank Herbert novels so far, with a lot more pages left to draw from—has clearly given the matter a lot of thought. “First, it’s important that people understand that for me, it was really a diptych. It was really a pair of movies that will be the adaptation of the first book. That’s done and that’s finished,” he said. “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 also sounds like Villeneuve is reluctant to frame Dune Messiah as a specific box to check on his work schedule; he told the magazine “I like to do one thing at a time … I have too many things right now,” and named the third Dune movie as just one of his irons in the fire at the moment.
He is also more than open to the idea of someone else taking up the Dune after he’s finished his time storytelling in its world. “Listen, if Dune Messiah happens, it will have been many years for me on Arrakis, and I would love to do something else,” he told Vanity Fair. “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. 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.”
Read the full Villeneuve interview with Vanity Fair here; you can also listen to the magazine’s Little Gold Men podcast, where the interview was conducted.
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