Dune: Part II didn’t make quite the impact at the Oscars that the first installment did, but nonetheless, the movie earned five nominations on top of an impressive box office haul. While the last Dune movie is still less than a year old, director Denis Villeneuve is already hard at work on the next one, which will bring the series to a close.
“I’m in the writing zone right now,” Villeneuve said in an interview with Deadline before adding that he’ll “go back behind the camera faster than I think.”
When asked about when this third installment, which will adapt Frank Herbert’s Dune: Messiah, might start shooting, Villeueve said 2026, but was quick to add a caveat. “These movies take a lot of time to be made, so it’s best not to say out loud when I might shoot.”
He also said that, while this film will wrap up a series, his plan is also for it to feel quite different from the first two films.
“Like Herbert did with Dune: Messiah, I think it’ll be a great idea to do something completely different,” he said. “The story takes place like 12 years after where we left the characters at the end of Part Two. Their journey, their story is different this time, and that’s why I always say that while it’s the same world, it’s a new film with new circumstances.”
As the Dune series continues, the novels get weirder, but Villeneuve has proven that he’s more than capable of translating Frank Herbert’s world to the screen. It seems like he’s already deep in preparations to pull that off one more time.
