Yesterday brought a stunning new trailer for Denis Villenueve’s Dune, which is shaping up to be one of the most visually dazzling, ambitious and expansive movies to arrive this year. Make no mistake, the mega budget sci-fi epic is the sort of thing that demands to be seen on the biggest possible screen, so you’d be much better off heeding the director’s advice and avoiding the film on HBO Max to head to your nearest multiplex instead.
Adapted from Frank Herbert’s seminal novel, Dune has already been described by one crew member as having the potential to be this generation’s The Lord of the Rings, and there’s also a prequel series in the works for HBO Max in addition to a feature length sequel, so Warner Bros. are clearly hedging their bets on the lavish and spectacular story finding a huge audience.
Of course, because this is the internet we’re talking about, one of the main talking points in the wake of the latest footage focused more on Oscar Isaac’s admittedly glorious beard than the content of the promo itself, as you can see from the reactions below.
Nobody’s going to sit there and deny that Oscar Isaac can grow a mighty fine set of facial furniture, but it’s the sort of bizarre minutiae that Twitter loves to turn into a phenomenon. You can only imagine famed perfectionist Villenueve’s reaction were he to discover that his $165 million passion project is going down a storm on social media for what’s on Isaac’s face rather than the images he’s painstakingly composed. On the plus side, at least the handsome star’s magnificent mane is guaranteed to bring in audience members to Dune who won’t be familiar with the source material at all.
