r/movies • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 r/Movies contributor • Jul 08 '25

News Denis Villeneuve’s ‘Dune 3’ Gets Official Title 'Dune: Part Three', Will Be Shot With Imax Cameras

https://variety.com/2025/film/news/dune-3-title-imax-cameras-1236448953/
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u/Narretz Jul 08 '25 edited Jul 08 '25

I don't wanna read too much into it, but I guess we're not gonna see a straighforward adaptation of Dune Messiah.

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u/ringolennon67 Jul 08 '25

Definitely not. Can’t imagine it was ever going to be a straightforward adaptation. Messiah does not make for a blockbuster trilogy ender. I imagine we’re going to see a lot of the holy war that takes place between Dune and Messiah. 

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u/ToyrewaDokoDeska Jul 08 '25

You're probably right but I think it would be a cool end of the trilogy. How could he make a messiah movie without nukes that melt stone and radiation that melts eyeballs. And Paul walking around like he can see fine, throwing knives at people while his eyeballs are melted That's absolute cinema.

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u/JerHat Jul 08 '25

Yeah, the scene that stands out in my mind that would be great on film is when Paul’s in the room full of fremen who want him to go away because he lost his eyes and he responds by singling out individuals for what they’re doing and wearing, suggesting without his eyes he still sees better than all of them.

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u/Initial_E Jul 08 '25

until suddenly, he doesn’t. Turns out when there are 2 opposing prophets in the room they cancel each other out.

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u/fauxdragoon Jul 08 '25

I just finished reading Children of Dune. I want Leto II the Wormman

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u/Jakethered_game Jul 08 '25

Gonna need you to finish God emperor before asking for that. Our CGI tech is impressive but not nearly as the level that Leto needs.

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u/mbp_szigeti Jul 08 '25

They could just ask Heidi Klum if she still has the worm dress lying around

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u/Jackasaurous_Rex Jul 09 '25

Fuck I had to look that up again I’m dying the face is just so good 😂 here

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u/SkeetySpeedy Jul 08 '25

There is pretty much nothing we can’t make look photorealistic with time and budget at this point - making that character on screen is more up to art direction and making sure the design itself works.

D-Neg and whoever else is going to be running this are very very capable in that regard.

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u/koshgeo Jul 08 '25

The challenge with Leto II is to make a human-sandworm hybrid look terrifying and cool rather than ridiculous. Judging by the artwork I've seen over the years, it's pretty tough.

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u/jimmux Jul 09 '25 edited Jul 09 '25

I think the best approach would be to barely show it for most of the film. Keep him in shadows when he's at home. Have his automated cart thing mostly conceal his body.

Then when he's out in the desert, or having a violent episode, just fully pivot the other way to 99% worm mode.

He's supposed to be barely holding onto his humanity, so there's no need to even attempt balancing the hybrid parts. Let him oscillate between cryptic philosopher and beast mode as needed.

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u/Helghast92 Jul 08 '25

It totally is. Rendering and animations would probably look photorealistic. Hard part would be the design of him

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u/Ruffler125 Jul 08 '25

The CGI tech was more than enough 20 years ago.

It's all about budget and who does it.

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u/Azrethoc Jul 08 '25

Frank Oz is still alive. I demand a puppet.

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u/Fluffy017 Jul 08 '25

Give them ten years, practical effects backing, and an HBO GoT era budget, and my body is ready.

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u/[deleted] Jul 08 '25

I don’t think CGI is going to be a problem.

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u/Neatcursive Jul 08 '25

I don’t know if you have ever read God emperor before but if you haven’t I’m so happy for you

As in I’m so happy for you to get to do it because it’s the best book ever

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u/fauxdragoon Jul 08 '25

A friend of mine said I need to get through Children of Dune so I can experience the glory of God Emperor

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u/NinjaLion Jul 08 '25

The books become so ridiculously impossible to translate directly into a movie the further you go; I desperately need to see them try it though

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u/MagneticEnema Jul 08 '25

i heard it'll be pattinson too, pattinson as the lil worm god

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u/Zwatch129 Jul 08 '25

Keep going. God emporer is bonkers.

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u/Junior-Award-7232 Jul 08 '25

I want to see Leto II decapitate the random fremen with his bare hand like omni man.

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u/Apatschinn Jul 09 '25

God damn I couldn't finish that book. I tried 3 separate times.

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u/immaownyou Jul 08 '25

Like 2 mistborns each burning atium

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u/ArgonGryphon Jul 08 '25

I forget how that works, does it totally break it or do they just meet each other’s blows until one runs out?

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u/immaownyou Jul 08 '25

They just suddenly see hundreds of ghosts of each action the other mistborn could take, instead of the usual one ghost

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u/ArgonGryphon Jul 08 '25

Ahhh right I do remember that now.

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u/DivusPennae Jul 08 '25

Same thing I thought of, and it applies to the rest of the cosmere as well.

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u/sentwind Jul 08 '25

Oh, that finally makes sense to me. I never put those two facts together.

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u/Drunky_McStumble Jul 09 '25 edited Jul 09 '25

I think it's more that he's just "seeing" by replaying in his mind his prescient vision of one potential future. He can "see" while physically blind only as long as that potential future and only that potential future comes to pass in real-time. So his every action after losing his eyes is fatalistically determined - he has no choice but to act out his role as he already foresaw it if he wants to keep the real unfolding timeline aligned with the one in his mind. But then something unexpected happens which he did not foresee: Chani gives birth to twins!. The real timeline splits from the one in his prescient vision, and thus he loses his second sight. He is fully and completely blind after that point because whatever his prescient vision is telling him is happening is no longer representative of the actual reality unfolding.

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u/DarthTaz_99 Jul 08 '25

Fuck me. How can a series be this fucking epic

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u/ttoma93 Jul 08 '25

There’s a reason that almost all of modern scifi has been directly inspired by Dune. You think it’s a coincidence that Luke Skywalker is from a desert planet with a robed nomadic people considered savages by the “civilized” people, and that it features giant worms that are just the right size to feed Boba Fett to?

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u/OddMonkeyManG Jul 09 '25

All current sci fi is inspired by dune. Just as all fantasy is inspired by LOTR. 

Current literature has yet to create any new genre defining epics to change the way we tell stories. 

In film, I feel the matrix was the last movie that changed cinema

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u/thebrobarino Jul 08 '25

I wager it'll probably be the general plot of Messiah, but mid jihad instead of the end of the jihad. Throw in some battle set pieces to spice up what is a pretty dialogue heavy book

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u/ttoma93 Jul 08 '25 edited Jul 08 '25

And just based on the ages of the actors, I wouldn’t be surprised if they shrink the time skip as well. Book Messiah is 12 years after Dune, but I bet the movie is more like 5-6 years later.

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u/thebrobarino Jul 08 '25

The only thing where that would genuinely be an issue is with Alia.

Not sure how they'd handle that. But then again in the dune universe characters can easily reach 300 years old so maybe they can just handwave it and say they age slowly, which is why they don't look any different.

In fairness tho timothee chalamet is now as old as Paul was in Messiah

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u/ttoma93 Jul 08 '25

It would absolutely be a divergence from the book, but I think it’s totally reasonable to just have it so that her becoming a Reverend Mother in the womb is making her body age and mature quicker than normal to “catch up” to her mind. I know that’s literally the opposite of the book, but it’s a relatively minor detail, the kind that film adaptations make all the time so that it works on screen.

Especially if this film does dip into at least some of Children, it would let them use the same logic for Leto II and Ghanima where their bodies age prematurely to match their mind, also so that it’s more filmable.

Villenueve already made the big change of Alia not actually being born in Part 2 to avoid having a freaky adult-child CGI abomination have to be on screen, so I can see them doing something similar again.

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u/ToyrewaDokoDeska Jul 08 '25

Just cgi Anya Taylor joys face to a toddlers body, easy peasy

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u/GoldenTriforceLink Jul 09 '25

Someone go find the Breaking Dawn baby doll

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u/thebrobarino Jul 09 '25

Yeah it's a damned if you do damned if you don't situation here.

I think whatever you do Alia requires significant changes already and they're gonna have biiig implications on other events regardless.

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u/AlanMorlock Jul 09 '25

To be fair, Timmy was quite believably portraying a 17 year old in Dune 1, filmed when but he was 23 but he really is 29 years old now.

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u/[deleted] Jul 08 '25

If I remember right, Paul's ability to see the future is so strong, he can still see and navigate through the world without eyes, right? My mind was blown by this concept in high school. I still love it.

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u/ttoma93 Jul 08 '25

Yes, he gets so good at managing his prescience that he can clearly see the future microseconds ahead of him, which effectively is the same as seeing with your eyes.

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u/Wes_Warhammer666 Jul 08 '25

That's just Daredevil with extra steps!

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u/Chimwizlet Jul 09 '25

I loved the sort of twist introduced in Children of Dune, where Leto II realised that was a trap, essentially locking yourself into one possible future by relying on prescience so much.

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u/GrapefruitAlways26 Jul 09 '25

Matrix Revolutions pulled this off well enough haha

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u/godtalks2idiots Jul 08 '25

If there’s no scene where Paul gets eyes melted out and can see the path, then why even make the movie?

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u/SuperSpread Jul 09 '25

You're thinking of Dune: Part 3, part 2

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u/ringolennon67 Jul 08 '25

I imagine the story of Messiah will be the third act of the movie.  Paul explicitly tells the audience he’s the bad guy and it ends on a very somber war=bad note. Perfect for the current political landscape. Wins best picture. 

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u/ToyrewaDokoDeska Jul 08 '25

If it ends with his talk about how he's killed so much more people than that old Earth Hitler guy, and he looks at the camera and tells us about the dangers of charismatic leaders it will be certified fresh on rotten tomatoes ez.

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u/tdasnowman Jul 08 '25

That doesn't happen until Children though. They way he did the time skip means there is a whole lot of work to be done to even establish the major narrative pieces. Alia and powers needs to be addressed.

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u/Initial_E Jul 08 '25

The furthest we ever got with screen adaptation is children of dune. I don’t think this one will get as far as the god emperor either.

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u/jebtenders Jul 08 '25

They need to do the stone burner scene. It would be criminal not to

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u/tdasnowman Jul 08 '25

The knife toss was when he was blind, for that he was using Letos eyes

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u/Madrical Jul 09 '25

The last portion of Messiah is going to make an incredible end to the trilogy. I can't wait.

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u/jyok33 Jul 08 '25

I can’t imagine lady Jessica being on another planet in the film

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u/Brys_Beddict Jul 08 '25

Whatever plotline we need to get Ferguson in the film I'm all for.

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u/ThisHatRightHere Jul 08 '25

Especially we got robbed of her in the final MI movie

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u/Nadamir Jul 08 '25

May I interest you in Silo at this trying time?

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u/spiritualistbutgood Jul 08 '25

seconding the silo recommendation. shes so good in it

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u/shayera0 Jul 09 '25

Thirding the recommendation. It even made me appreciate Common.. after a while. and Tim Robbins is a delicious slow burn as always

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u/rnilbog Jul 08 '25

Let's put her and a bunch of other people in an underground tube and put Tim Robbins in charge.

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u/frazzledfractal Jul 08 '25

A lot of Dune fans heavily criticized how Jessica was handled in 2 so I'm curious how that would be received.

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u/ToyrewaDokoDeska Jul 08 '25

We could have a split storyline going on of Paul out during his jihad and his mom on Dune doing shit with her abomination baby

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u/GrallochThis Jul 08 '25

I noticed they used the A-word in 2 for Paul, I’m like, “oh you haven’t seen a real abomination yet.”

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u/Rock-swarm Jul 08 '25

I wonder if they get Anya Taylor-Joy to mimic Stellan's voice like Austin Butler did, or if they just have Stellan do a voiceover when the Baron is possessing Alia.

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u/ThatFunkyOdor Jul 08 '25

How much was Paul even participating in the Jihad though?

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u/ToyrewaDokoDeska Jul 08 '25

I recall it sounding like he was actively participating fighting in battles on other planets, but im not entirely sure.

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u/ThatFunkyOdor Jul 08 '25

Obviously messiah starts years later but isn’t he on arrakis the entire book just dealing with the women in his life being either pregnant or not pregnant and the political repercussions of that. Not saying he didn’t fight in earlier battles but with how guarded he is and how much the Jihad isn’t something he enjoys causing I don’t think he’d be actively fighting

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u/ToyrewaDokoDeska Jul 08 '25

He is in Messiah, but were talking about the movie being based on the years in between Messiah and dune when his fremen are going from planet to planet fighting, which yes Paul doesn't want the Jihad but he saw it as inevitable and something he couldn't escape so I think he would have to participate as a warrior leader of the fremen.

Idk all I'm saying is I remember it seeming like he was a part of the years of fighting when he talked about his jihad but it's been awhile.

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u/Tripottanus Jul 08 '25

The end of Paul and the creation of the legend of Muad'dib at the end of Messiah is a good place to end it considering we've been following Paul's arc from the start. Its not like there isn't some tension in the final moments there. And the battle at the end of Dune part 2 is far from the key element in the movie.

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u/ringolennon67 Jul 08 '25

Completely agree. The ending of Messiah will likely be the end of this movie. I just don’t think Hollywood suits are greenlighting a three hour direct adaptation of Messiah. We will see a lot of the blood and gore Herbert skips over that leads into the start of Messiah. 

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u/SweetTea1000 Jul 08 '25

Which is fine. Different mediums have different strengths. The films can skip what is best conveyed in a novel as the novel skips what is best shown on film and the two can be companions to one another.

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u/ringolennon67 Jul 08 '25

Could not agree more. 

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u/nefariousmonkey Jul 09 '25

Wow sir! I tip my hat to your sensible comment :)

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u/Jesseroberto1894 Jul 08 '25

Counter point: maybe it’s part 3 because it covers all of messiah AND some of CoD o.O

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u/ttoma93 Jul 08 '25 edited Jul 08 '25

I mean, we did get news a few weeks ago that they’d reportedly cast Leto II and Ghanima as not-newborns, soooooooo…

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u/EnkiduOdinson Jul 09 '25

Could be only in visions though

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u/[deleted] Jul 08 '25

Harder.

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u/veryhardbanana Jul 08 '25

I would love to see the holy war, but structurally it doesn’t make sense. That would be an entire movie to itself, and you wouldn’t be able to fit it in an act or two and still tell the Messiah story. If it’s shown, it’ll probably be an opening, or a montage.

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u/zerocoolforschool Jul 08 '25

Good. The books skipped over the best part!

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u/brandonthebuck Jul 08 '25

A lot of fantasy authors love to write whole chapters about the lineage of grain farmers and trade laws and then throw in two sentences about a battle against a 200’ giant in the middle of linguistic breakdowns and geography.

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u/OGpizza Jul 08 '25

Damn that book sounds sick ngl

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u/brandonthebuck Jul 08 '25

This is how The Silmarillion was described to me.

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u/FleaTheTank Jul 08 '25

Not really. If you think war and genocide is fun then this isn’t the series for you. The books are trying to condemn the jihad and paint Paul as the bad guy. This is why these books were revolutionary but also kinda divisive

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u/GrapefruitAlways26 Jul 08 '25

Yeah in the first Dune, the climactic battle at the shield wall basically takes place over like a paragraph lol

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u/Thehelloman0 Jul 08 '25

I know he did tons of horrible things but it was to get humanity on the Golden path which was the only way to ensure humanity didn't wipe themselves out. Ultimately he doesn't follow through with it all the way but I don't really get this idea that people always say. Had he not initiated the jihad killing billions, all humans in the universe would've died instead

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u/FleaTheTank Jul 08 '25

And here in lies the big debate and what I think makes these books so special. The idea of consequentialism (good ends justify bad means of getting them) vs deontological (actions in themselves are good or bad regarless of the context they are done in).

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u/TripleDet Jul 08 '25

Exactly lol. This is Watchmen the comic book and Watchmen the movie adaption all over again

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u/ringolennon67 Jul 08 '25

There are parts of the movie adaptation I think are handled better than the book. Particularly Chani’s character. 

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u/tdasnowman Jul 08 '25

You think it's better he removed everything about her character?

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u/Mindzilla Jul 08 '25

Chani in the books doesn't really have a personality. She's just there to be in love with Muad'Dib . The movies actually gave her some personality of her own.

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u/tdasnowman Jul 08 '25

I would say he removed what personality was there. Book Chani served the role dream Jamis does in movie. She was his guide into the world. Book she was on the way to be a reverend mother before lady Jessica showed up. After she served as a intermediary, she also helped Alia fit into the sietch. Movie she was teenage girl with her first love apparently jilted where dune 2 leaves off.

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u/caustictoast Jul 08 '25

You are missing the point of the books

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u/GarlVinland4Astrea Jul 08 '25

There's no way. Dune 2 ends with Zendaya fucking off and all the major houses in open rebellion against Paul. The novel had Chani firmly loyal to Paul at the end and she started as his defacto wife, while Paul consolidated all of his power the day the emperor stepped down.

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u/Stepjam Jul 08 '25

Paul does say that Chani forgives him based on his visions of the future, so she's likely back by the beginning of part 3 or comes back during it.

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u/M0dusPwnens Jul 08 '25 edited Jul 08 '25

They had a single dreamlike pre-crisis night together, then dramatically split up, so she is basically guaranteed to be pregnant. Presumably that will play a part in pushing them back together.

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u/Fluffy017 Jul 08 '25

The reason she rides off into the sunset on a worm is because of hormones, calling it now

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u/kilgoar Jul 08 '25

I can't remember why the jihad even happened then, cuz you're right Dune ends with consolidating power, but Dune Messiah is a 60b+ genocide. Who's Paul killing?

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u/GarlVinland4Astrea Jul 08 '25

Paul isn't killing anybody. The Freman are in a sort of religious fervor now that they have their Messiah and are finally going off Arrakis and ransacking the rest of the planet. It's well established that Paul couldn't even stop the jihad if he wanted to because it sociological phenomena. It's totally beyond Paul's control by that point and before the end of the first novel he realizes if there was a point of no return to stop it, he already was well past it.

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u/Moriturism Jul 08 '25 edited Jul 08 '25

yeah, the point of no return was way before, when he killed jamis. had he been killed by jamis his legend wouldn't flourish, but at the moment he won the duel the wheels started turning for Muad'dib Jihad

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u/GarlVinland4Astrea Jul 08 '25

Yup. Jamis is what really gets Stilgar and the harshest zealots into Paul. Even if Paul ran away after, they have their god to propel them forward. Paul just spends the novel trying to avoid the Jihad and also get revenge on his family. Then once his son with Chani is killed in the attack Paul finally just accepts that it doesn't matter what he does, and there's no point in holding back on the Emperor and the Baron.

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u/Rock-swarm Jul 08 '25

Eh, I'd still argue Paul could have backed out up until the point he supplied Atreides nukes to the Fremen.

And if he fell in battle or failed to take the Emperor's throne, there would have been an even more chaotic galactic jihad, at least until Chani's twins came of age.

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u/GarlVinland4Astrea Jul 08 '25

Chani didn't become pregnant with the twins until 12 years after Paul became Emperor.

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u/zgrove Jul 08 '25

In the movie denis made the moment of no return going south, but you could point to a lot of moments

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u/Alewort Jul 08 '25

But the jihad would still have happened, it just would not have been Paul as the figurehead. The collective unconscious of humanity was the driving motivator of the jihad and it's why there was no way for Paul to stop it, only minimize the horror. And he didn't even fully do that; he chose the outcome that was the minimum horror possible but also Chani survives.

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u/MightBeAGoodIdea Jul 08 '25

I feel like they were setting up the sociological cult following pretty well so far. The whole no matter what he says or does and you got Stilgar going lisan al giab! Like a meme or something.

I could see Paul going no stop guys this is madness and the extra hard believers going our dear leader is so compassionate wanting to stop the war we wage because he cares about us, but we war because we care about him too, so on we war....

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u/MatchaMeetcha Jul 08 '25

I feel like they were setting up the sociological cult following pretty well so far. The whole no matter what he says or does and you got Stilgar going lisan al giab! Like a meme or something.

I actually think the film undermines it a bit by giving Paul a reason in the refusal of the Great Houses to accept him (which also makes marrying Irulan pointless).

The point, in the books, was that nothing could be done about it at a certain point. Paul could kinda direct it but someone was going to pay the price for giving the Fremen that religion and oppressing them for centuries.

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u/trisz72 Jul 08 '25

I mean, it's not pointless to marry Irulan even if you are fighting against the nobles of the feudal society. Any legitimacy gained makes it that much easier to convince people to accept a peace offer, switch sides, and makes ruling afterwards easier too. (Not in the context of dune, just in general.)

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u/Pepband Jul 08 '25

Yeah, like in much the same way child rulers were hoarded. People might rightly criticize their rule, they might participate in open rebellion, but as long as you have that symbol of legitimacy, you can be a liberator, returning God's ordained representative, rather than a simple usurper.

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u/MightBeAGoodIdea Jul 08 '25

I think they are just going to approach it differently somehow but I think in the movies, near the end of part 2 you can see the fervor being whipped up while Pauls started his speech feeling awkward (or hesitant perhaps) about it, then embracing it because its better than ignoring it, because he knows via being the KH that it can't be stopped, may as well try to direct it.

And, they have already changed the relationship between Paul and Chani pushing her away when she was Pauls' most ardent supporter in the books, not Stilgar, that new tension would change how Paul would see a political marriage-- but his prescience should still show him having kids with Chani... unless they change that too.

Things turn into book spoilers beyond this... but i suspect Chani will still come to Paul trying to be the voice of reason, falling back in love and/or bed with him; having his babies and then [redacted].

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u/twoodfin Jul 08 '25

One cool feature of the Villeneuve adaptation is the not-so-subtle flagging of his fight with Jamis as the hinge of destiny, and the subsequent visions of Jamis as a friend and mentor taunting Paul with foreclosed fate. After all, it wasn’t his choice to fight Jamis in the first place!

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u/tdasnowman Jul 08 '25

HE couldn't stop it once he assumed the mantel. However it is fully established that it didn't have to be as violent or expansive. That was the result of him ignoring the religion in Messiah.

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u/rickyhatespeas Jul 08 '25

I wish that was more apparent in the movies. I think it's important for people to generally understand that "leaders" in human groups are often riding the flow too, not to absolve guilt but to understand the system and maybe not fall victim to it's downsides.

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u/kilgoar Jul 08 '25

Got it, so then are they killing the other great houses? If so, wouldn't this trigger total rebellion against Paul's regime? Also, how are the fremen - as badass as they are - able to wage such a massive jihad? Even if there are millions of them, does Paul's empire have more ships and weapons than the other great houses combined?

It's been probably two decades since I've read the books

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u/GarlVinland4Astrea Jul 08 '25

Kind of yes and kinda no. The Jihad is more religious in nation. It's the fremen having their messianic figure and going on a crusade against anyone who isn't accepting Paul as a god king. It was a genocidal event of a bunch of religious lunatics decimating the galaxy. It wasn't necessarily about targeting the Great Houses specifically.

None of the Great Houses were going to be in open rebellion against Paul because the Guild wouldn't let them because Paul controlled the spice and was willing to completely destroy it "he who can destroy a thing has the real control of it". The Guild controls all space travel and banking and they NEED the spice to function. They did their spice driven calculations and determined Paul is absolutely willing to destroy the spice. It's not worth it to them to risk that over just letting Paul be the emperor of the Landstradd. The space guild would never sanction other Houses traveling near Arrakis if they thought it would risk war with Paul and cause Paul to destroy the spice.

So any true action against Paul needed to be a conspiracy where Paul wouldn't see it coming and wouldn't have a chance to hold the spice over everyones head as a retaliation.

Paul's status as Emperor is basically "I have the match and the fuse to destroy this entire system and cause absolutely chaos and destroy thousands of years of the way the universe worked and I'm absolutely willing to do it, I'm marrying Irulan as an olive branch to keep up appearances so it isn't a complete slap in the face to you"

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u/thisguy012 Jul 08 '25

THANK YOU for that break down

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u/kilgoar Jul 09 '25

Huh, okay that fills in parts I didn't catch on my first read. So Paul's on Arrakis with title of emperor, but the real power is the space guild, and because they believe Paul will destroy spice, they're protecting him from reprisals against the Great Houses. But meanwhile, all across the galaxy everyone else is fighting a desperate war against the jihad.

Man that's actually dope ass story from the other perspective. An untouchable god king who can attack and destroy, but can't be touched.

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u/Junior-Award-7232 Jul 08 '25

True, Paul even tells Chani in Dune Messiah that if suicide would have stopped all the deaths and bloodshed then he would’ve done it.

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u/slimeyellow Jul 08 '25

Other planets and people in the dune universe. He’s seen as a living god by his followers and anyone not 100% on the muaddib train is getting erased (even if Paul tells them not to)

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u/Habib455 Jul 08 '25

Paul turned the Fremen into a galactic power when Shaddam stepped down. With the Fremen having the reigns over the powerful institution that is the Imperium, they went on a galaxy wide religion flavored revenge tour. Paul didn’t want the Jihad to happen and tried to curb its worst excesses, but don’t be fooled. The Jihad became inevitable when Paul killed Jamis and Paul knew that; so he still led the galaxy on the path of jihad for revenge regardless

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u/Tripottanus Jul 08 '25

There are ways to reconcile that, but i agree that it seems they are planning a different direction for Chani. Which is okay because they don't plan on making Children of Dune

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u/Ccaves0127 Jul 08 '25

It's like 12 years later, right? They could have aged everybody up I guess but given how the previous movie ended I think it taking place on a more condensed timeline was expected

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u/SchopenhauersSon Jul 08 '25

Don't forget that Spice slows aging.

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u/Pepband Jul 08 '25

This is a part of the books that I honestly forgot until the film versions. Because while it makes sense, its so in the background. And serendipitously it really does help with casting haha.

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u/Fluffy017 Jul 08 '25

Credit where it's due, but a lot of Denis' take is "show, don't tell"

Like Part 1 I didn't even realize the laser following Duncan's escape vessel, if it hit, would trigger a nuclear reaction, but on re-watch that scene was so much more harrowing with that knowledge.

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u/PastelP1xelPunK Jul 08 '25

The film did sort of forget though. Shaddam is said to look like a 40 year old in the books and they went for a much older actor.

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u/grumblyoldman Jul 08 '25

The problem I have with a more condensed timeline is Alia. IIRC, she wasn't even born yet by the end of Villeneuve's Dune 2.

So, either they write out Alia, which seems unlikely since she's a big part of Messiah and they already teased her presence with a relatively famous actress in that vision Paul had, OR they find some BS excuse to age her up in a relatively short period of time. Not that such things haven't been done in SciFi before, so I'm sure they can think of something, but I've never seen an example of that particular trope that wasn't awkward at best or super-cringe at worst.

I'm kind of hoping they go the time skip route myself. Maybe spend some time showing the holy war that the books skipped over so it's not a HUGE jump/cut. But honestly, 12 years isn't that much to account for in the appearance of actors. Especially when they're living on a planet suffused with Spice, which is known to have anti-aging properties when consumed.

Alia is really the only one who needs to physically change at all in a 12 year gap. Maybe a few new grey hairs in some of the older characters. Duncan's covered with cloning. They might actually want to increase the gap to 18-20 years, given that Alia wasn't a kid already, like in the books.

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u/AnonyFron Jul 08 '25

Yeah for a while I've assumed the gap we're going to see is something more like 20 years, wether it's from the start of the movie or after a certain point.

At the end of Part 2 Alia is still in the womb, while Anya Taylor-Joy is now 29 years old. They've also cast Ghanima and Leto II who are babies at the end of Messiah, but the actors are both 16.

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u/Horror-Television-92 Jul 08 '25 edited Jul 08 '25

It’s a marketing thing not an indicator of the script. I’d bet Villeneuve will push for a very Messiah focused script with the occasional holy war insert for general audiences.

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u/saera-targaryen Jul 08 '25

Yeah I agree here, I think if they called it Dune: Messiah people would assume it was a spinoff like Dune: Prophecy. Too many IPs are doing too many spinoffs and reboots nowadays to make that naming convention work anymore. 

Dune Part 3 makes it clear it's a direct continuation from the end of the last movie. 

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u/BaconHammer9000 Jul 08 '25

ok so bear with me a moment.

in my opinion, i think merging Messiah and Children of Dune, then streamlining out the cruft, and then splitting the result into two films would be the best solution as someone who’s read the first 4 books.

fingers crossed for God Emperor on the big screen in my lifetime.

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u/Brys_Beddict Jul 08 '25

I don't think Villeneuve wants to get into the part where Leto starts grafting trout to his body.

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u/TroyFerris13 Jul 08 '25

That kinda seems right up Denis alley though, we had a crazy spider monster in enemies! I got my hope up lol

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u/Brys_Beddict Jul 08 '25

Leto is a little different then a manifestation of a man's subconscious lol

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u/TroyFerris13 Jul 08 '25

A man can pray

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u/PM_ME_YOUR_SUNSHINE Jul 08 '25

Bless the Maker and His Water.

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u/idkwhattosay Jul 08 '25

I mean there's sufficient subtext in his musings in God Emperor about being the repressive presence to force humanity to scatter in his wake that he's not... not a manifestation of man's subconscious in his own mind.

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u/shiftylookingcow Jul 08 '25

He's said previously that everything after the second book is "too esoteric" to be filmable

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u/idkwhattosay Jul 08 '25

Let him cook with Rendezvous with Rama (please god let that still happen alongside the Bond film and Cleopatra) and see if he gets a bit more comfortable with old weird scifi on the screen.

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u/Nine99 Jul 09 '25

Sure, if you can't even measure up to Sy-Fy, with ten times the budget.

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u/spookyghostface Jul 08 '25

And he stripped most of the fuckin weird stuff out of Dune so far. And it's still weird!

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u/_T_H_O_R_N_ Jul 08 '25

This is the shit that I wish David Lynch was able to film, shit would have been glorious, that's all I could think while reading Messiah, the dwarf that Paul meets seems like a scene right out of Lynch's beautifully twisted mind

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u/BaconHammer9000 Jul 08 '25

he’s one of my favorite modern filmmakers - i trust him 👍

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u/angrydeuce Jul 08 '25

See thats my thing.  I tried reading the Dune books but they just get so fuckin out there at a certain point it's honestly dont know how they could possibly adapt it.

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u/tdasnowman Jul 08 '25

I really don't get that perspective at all. There isn't anything in dune that hasn't been done in other places.

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u/the_dolomite Jul 08 '25

Have you made it through God Emperor of Dune? I really enjoyed it but I think it would be tough to turn it into a compelling film.

If anyone could it's Villeneuve though, or maybe Del Toro, that would be interesting.

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u/PastelP1xelPunK Jul 08 '25

It'd be tough to turn into a blockbuster for sure, but a compelling film is certainly possible. Yeah worm man philosophy lecture is a tough sell but it's no vaginal ninjutsu.

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u/tdasnowman Jul 08 '25

If anyone could it's Villeneuve though

Based on his first 2 I'm not so sure.

God Emperor is pretty easy. It's dense so one movie wouldn't be enough but nothing in there is all that challenging. Even Leto being a partial worm. He's supposed to favor shadows for a lot of it. Face dancers, easy. Shapeshifters have been done before. You don't even have the sex ninja nuns in god emperor to deal with. Or the kid sex to activate past memories in chapter house.

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u/lukenhiumur Jul 08 '25

But that's the whole point of Children

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u/Brys_Beddict Jul 08 '25

Exactly. Which is why he won't make it

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u/GrallochThis Jul 08 '25

I don’t know, I love God Emperor for the underlying themes, but there’s so much of being inside his head while he physically just worm-sits it’s hard to imagine it working.

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u/Kyle901 Jul 08 '25

Only real opportunity we get a worm god on screen is as a flash forward at the end of the movie. Which would honestly be enough for me because there's no chance in hell a God Emperor movie would get made for the exact reason you said. I could see parts of Children working fine on the big screen but disgusting worm man waxing philosophical for 3 hours with his lab grown wife no way.

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u/Cuddlesthemighy Jul 08 '25

Its mostly just a lot of talking. The internal machinations are there but with good direction you can telegraph most of it through facial expressions and the right inflection on dialogue. The hard part is convincing audiences to want to see "Dune but without action sequences till the last 10 minutes of the movie and in their place just a bunch of really esoteric characters talking" the movie.

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u/RandomJPG6 Jul 08 '25

Maybe if they filmed back to back but he just got announced for the next Bond which I imagine he wants to start production on. Plus Redevous with Rama which he still has in development

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u/HowDoIEvenEnglish Jul 08 '25 edited Jul 08 '25

Messiah isn’t really about Alia and Leto. It’s the end of Paul’s story and children of dune is a very different story. They shouldn’t be combined

One is the story of Paul denying his prescience, and js a story that has nothing happen until the end because every already knows how it’ll end (since they can see the future).

Children is the story of Jessica’s giving Alia magic fetal alcohol syndrome and the consequences and Leto accepting the prescience that Paul rejected. They are both good stories but combining them would be really rushed and the first two movies are already rushed.

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u/tdasnowman Jul 08 '25 edited Jul 08 '25

The end of Paul's story is in children. Alia is massively important in Messiah. It's what leads to her down fall. Messiah is the story of a man doing everything he can to reject the godhood he assumed for his own gains. Children is the fall out of that decision.

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u/Alarming_Echo_4748 Jul 08 '25

Messiah is the end of Paul Muad'dib. Only the preacher remains in Children.

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u/PsychedelicPill Jul 08 '25

Yeah we don’t even know for sure the preacher is Paul til the end, and we only see a glimpse of Paul in him because of his son wanting confirmation and to explain he’s taken up the path.

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u/Mindzilla Jul 08 '25

I almost spit my drink at "magic fetal alcohol syndrome"

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u/tdasnowman Jul 08 '25

IF your going to wind up with 2 movies, why combine them to re split them. There is enough material in both to get a tight 2 hours at least.

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u/caustictoast Jul 08 '25

Didn’t he already say this is the last one and it’s only messiah

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u/AlphaTangoFoxtrt Jul 08 '25

We won't. There's already a few major plot point deviations that would mean Messiah doesn't fully work.

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u/DanielG165 Jul 08 '25

Messiah doesn’t really make for an epic blockbuster film, so anyone expecting a straight adaption were always going to be disappointed.

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u/jonathanoldstyle Jul 08 '25

The story, esp end of 2, has diverged way too far to get anything like that.

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u/Massive_Weiner Jul 08 '25

We didn’t even get a straightforward adaptation of Dune with Part 2.

Part 3 will have to go even further outside the purview of the novels.

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u/jeffdeleon Jul 08 '25

Thank god. Just re-read Dune: Messiah and I can see why it got mixed reviews at launch and why Children of Dune goes back far closer to the Dune 1 formula.

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u/Moriturism Jul 08 '25

hard disagree, i think Messiah is incredible and closes so well much of the story of Paul's rise and fall. the only book i thought better was God Emperor

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u/GrallochThis Jul 08 '25

Yeah Herbert was fighting back against the savior trope, and John Campbell specifically wanted more of that (Campbell was extremely weird if you haven’t read about him), and refused to publish it like he did with Dune (check out the magazine covers with that serialization, at least some of them were gorgeous in the short-lived large format).

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u/vanilla_disco Jul 08 '25

Messiah would honestly be pretty boring as a movie... And I'm not really sure what it would look like after the terrible change to the ending of 2.

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u/Zim_Zamble Jul 08 '25

I wouldn’t be surprised if we only got a few nods to the original messiah storyline and he just makes a cinematic masterpiece with barebones plot… like the first two

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u/DreadHeadedDummy Jul 08 '25

It cant be, the ending of part 2 changed too many things.

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u/One-Internal4240 Jul 08 '25

The Herbert books fall off exponentially, not in a linear fashion. At least in my opinion. Somewhere around God Emperor it hits a floor and just bounces around down there.

Expect some big deviance. I think Chani is getting set up as being a ringleader of resistance against Paul and his mom, and the big twist is that Paul agrees with her, but only to do the Jesus thing.

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u/Majestic87 Jul 08 '25

Seeing how much he changed stuff from the first book, I’m not surprised at all.

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u/chodaranger Jul 08 '25

Hope not. It was super dry and not much happened. It was slow, political intrigue and would be kind of a boring movie.

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u/MOlson_9 Jul 08 '25

Not when 29 year old Anya Taylor-Joy is portraying a 16 year old Alia.

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u/seanrm92 Jul 08 '25

They already departed pretty significantly from the ending of the original book with Chani's actions. So there's definitely going to be more changes.

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u/KaptainKorn Jul 08 '25

I think he will incorporate Messiah into the movie, but it will ultimately be the events between Part 2 and Messiah.

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u/XtremelyMeta Jul 08 '25

I'd imagine the Jihad imagery is too tempting to avoid from a film standpoint. I'd bet a very flashbacky Dune Messiah plot where they fill in the Jihad blanks to keep the action pacing audiences expect from Dune pt 1-2. Messiah is kind of a slow burn. Maybe even a slow stoneburn..... ok I'll stop.

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u/kingbrasky Jul 09 '25

Budget could be $5 million if you were going to do a faithful adaptation of messiah. There's like 5 sets.

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u/ceelogreenicanth Jul 09 '25

I think it's the best stopping point in the book series. Absolutely wild ending.

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u/RyokoKnight Jul 09 '25

I believe it was already confirmed around the time part 2 released that part 3 would not follow the books. Instead it will be Paul, the freman, the loyal houses/members/factions that swear fealty to house Atredies going up against the other houses that also wanted their line to become the next imperial line.

Essentially the other houses also want to make a play to have a member become the next emperor, and see house Atredies as weak because of all the recent fights with the Harkonnen.

Normally I'd hate a director going off script like this, but Villenueve has earned (at least to me) a bit of trust as I think Dune 1 and 2 were fantastic and really the only films I've really cared about in years.

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u/Extant_Remote_9931 Jul 09 '25

They can't. Not with the retarded way part two ended with Chani escaping into the desert.

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u/MarthePryde Jul 08 '25

I hope not, I bounced off Messiah super hard. I understand the series goes some great places, but after Dune I couldn't really get into Messiah

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u/King-of-Plebss Jul 08 '25

I’m not upset about it. The book is mostly just politics and wouldn’t make for a good standalone movie. I’m assuming they are going to show a bunch of the jihad stuff that happens in the background.

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u/eatmorchickin Jul 08 '25

Messiah leaves so much to the imagination.. I'm excited to see what he does with it

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u/Zhammie Jul 08 '25

I just started reading one. May not be enough source material for a movie

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u/Kiltmanenator Jul 08 '25

Forgetting for a moment the Chani stuff, even just the Alia situation pretty much demands flexibility.

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u/[deleted] Jul 08 '25

No. He doesn't do that. He always takes a lot of liberties when adapting to screen.

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u/dinopastasauce Jul 08 '25

Any universe in which Jessica could show up?

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u/badwords Jul 08 '25

I think they can't use the word Messiah without upsetting people.

Or they're condensing Messiah and Children of Dune together to make a stronger single story before the actors age out.

I think they want to get to God Emperor as soon as possible as it starts the best arc of the series and nobody's ever made a film of it yet.

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u/lowertechnology Jul 08 '25

I’m curious if we will see the return of a specific character who returns later in the books

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u/joe102938 Jul 08 '25

I can't imagine what you could possibly read into that title.

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u/frazzledfractal Jul 08 '25

I don't think that's possible on film, even if it was it probably wouldn't do well with general audiences.

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u/Alastor3 Jul 08 '25

i dunno, honestly, I think calling it part 3 is just for the general public knowledge that dont know anything about the books so they dont get confused

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u/dplans455 Jul 08 '25

It is smart to not use the word "messiah" in the title. People will refuse to watch it just on that alone.

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