Denis Villenueve may be one of the most visually distinctive and technically accomplished filmmakers working today, but much like his would-be BFF Christopher Nolan, it’d be stretch of the imagination to describe his output as light-hearted and breezy stuff.
Prisoners, Enemy, Sicario, Arrival, Blade Runner 2049 and Dune are all fantastic movies that are nothing short of beautiful to look at, but each of them are sorely lacking in levity. Of course, not every project has to fire out one-liners like it’s the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but lean too hard into solemnity and things can often come off as dry.
Now that the requisite world-building and expositional heavy lifting is out of the way, Villenueve is free to go for broke when shooting on Dune: Part Two kicks off next summer ahead of an October 2023 release. Speaking to Deadline, the Academy Award nominee revealed that he’s planning on taking a different route when it comes to the tone of the piece.
“The first movie was really an introduction into the world, one of the main challenges was to make sure that the fans of the book would recognize the world, recognize the ideas and poetry, but that people who had never heard about the book or read the book will understand what the movie is about. In the second movie, now that this introduction has been made, it’s gonna be much more playful and cinematically fun to do.”
Villenueve may have an entirely different definition of ‘playful’ compared to the rest of us, but Dune: Part Two will need at least one character to pick up the slack left behind by Jason Momoa’s Duncan Idaho, who provided the solitary but much welcome bursts of charismatic energy in the first installment.
Published: Nov 15, 2021 05:27 am