Dune fans have a lot to celebrate these days. The 2021 film was hailed by fans and critics as a modern classic, and was nominated for ten Oscars including Best Picture. The trailer for Dune: Part Two recently dropped, and all signs point to it somehow being bigger and better than its predecessor.
But wait! There’s more! Deadline covered the trailer upon its release, and in doing so, revealed an incredible detail about the future of the Dune franchise. The outlet referred to Dune: Part Two as the second film in a trilogy, when all previous reports suggested that it would be the final chapter.
The reveal sent fans into a tailspin, with many theorizing that Deadline had made a mistake, but it’s true. Peter Hammond, the outlet’s Awards Columnist and Chief Film Critic, told World of Reel that he was explicitly told that there would be a third Dune film. “That is what [director] Denis [Villenueve] says is the plan,” he confirmed.
There were whispers of a third Dune film as early as 2022, but everybody associated with the franchise said the same thing: maybe. Jon Spaihts, the co-writer of the first two films, discussed the benefits of a possible trilogy during an interview with The Playlist.
“There are a few tantalizing strands that lead into the future and suggest that we might not be done in this universe, despite the fact that the ending of Dune as a novel, which will be the ending of the second film, is a very satisfying conclusion,” he noted. “There are a number of ways in which the book also sounds ominous notes, and there are hints of foreboding about what made be yet to come.”
Since the first two Dune films would constitute a full adaptation of the Frank Herbert novel, a third film would look to other source material. The one that Spaihts and Villenueve have in mind is Herbert’s sequel novel, Dune: Messiah, which takes place twenty years later. There would obviously be some age discrepancies, in terms of the characters being much older than the actors who portray them, but Villenueve has wanted to adapt Dune: Messiah since the release of the first film.
“I always envisioned three movies,” he told Entertainment Weekly in 2021. “It’s not that I want to do a franchise, but this is Dune, and Dune is a huge story. In order to honor it, I think you would need at least three movies. That would be the dream. To follow Paul Atreides and his full arc would be nice.”
Villenueve will have economy on his side whenever the third film gets underway. The first Dune novel is 700 pages, while Dune: Messiah is around 350. Based on the stellar job he’s done so far, we’re confident that he will be able to make the right cuts and deliver a final chapter that’s both epic and intimate. Until then, we’re going back to watching the trailer for Dune: Part Two on a loop.
