Denis Villenueve recently revealed that it took less than a minute for Legendary Pictures to give his adaptation of Dune the green light, and the official confirmation of a sequel came just as quick.
The awe-inspiring sci-fi blockbuster had barely finished its first weekend in theaters when Part Two was announced, and that was before the acclaimed epic went on to earn over $400 million at the box office, received widespread critical adulation, and land ten Academy Award nominations including Best Picture.
Production on the second chapter is gearing up to start in the fall, with Florence Pugh and Austin Butler poised to join an already-stacked cast in major roles, while Villenueve has already been teasing Part Three. On top of that, HBO Max spinoff Dune: The Sisterhood remains in active development (although it hasn’t yet been ordered to series), and there could be even more to come.
In a recent interview with The Playlist, writer Jon Spaihts teased that he was tasked to “investigate other cinematic prospects”, which certainly sounds like a shared universe to us.
“[The television show] is carrying on and I’m not allowed to talk about it very much. But that effort is alive and well. I ended up getting moved off of it to work, not just on Dune: Part Two, but to investigate other cinematic prospects in the Dune universe, which we are still talking about and which, again, I’m not allowed to say very much about. But it is a very rich world in which to play, and I think it is ripe with opportunities for storytelling in every direction.”
There’s no shortage of source material to choose from, and with a big screen sequel and a TV series already in the works, Spaihts is already well on his way to putting the building blocks in place.