Director Denis Villeneuve is now writing a third Dune movie, and he’s teased a little more about what to expect. The next Dune movie will adapt the Dune Messiah novel, which picks up 12 years after Dune 2, with Paul (Timothee Chalamet) and Chani (Zendaya) reunited, but Chani is angry. Villeneuve teased that he has the story figured out, but he’s not sharing it yet.
“That anger is tremendous,” he told The New York Times. “I don’t want to reveal what I’m going to do with the third movie. I know exactly what to do. I’m writing it right now. But there’s a lot of firepower there and I’m very excited about that decision.”
According to a report, Villeneuve will not make Dune 3 as his next film. His next project is currently unknown, but he was also recently linked to a nuclear war movie.
Making three Dune films has been Villeneuve’s plan all along. “I always envisioned three movies,” Villeneuve told EW. “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.”
“I have four projects on the table currently. One of them is a secret project that I cannot talk about right now, but that needs to see the light of day quite quickly. So it would be a good idea to do something in between projects, before tackling Dune Messiah and Cleopatra,” he said in March. “All these projects are still being written, so we’ll see where they go, but I have no control over that.”
Villeneuve also spoke to NYT about the Dune popcorn bucket craze, saying he thought it was an “insane marketing idea,” and one that brought him joy.
“I laughed so much. It is so out there. I don’t know who designed it, but they’re a bit of a genius. I’m at peace with the bucket,” he said.
Villeneuve also discussed how sex works in Dune’s world pertaining to Fremen. He said Fremens “love to kiss” and they are “very sexual.” They cannot have sex outside due to the world around them, but they can definitely get down in the right circumstances.
“I suspect that all sexual intercourse happens in environments that are protected from losing moisture. When they are in their sietches [or caves] underground, those are sealed. You don’t need to wear stillsuits inside them. We can deduce from that there is no problem to have sex in a sietch,” he said.
Across its two recent installments, the Dune series has earned more than $1 billion at the box office. 1984’s Dune, from director David Lynch, was much less of a success; it earned just $31 million against a $40 million budget.
