‘Dune’ director Denis Villeneuve opens up on franchise’s future

The director of the “Dune” franchise Denis Villeneuve has opened up about the future of the franchise as development on the third movie continues.

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In an interview with a US media outlet, the notable director asserted that the upcoming movie, based on Frank Herbert’s novel “Dune Messiah,” was not being developed as a final movie in a trilogy.

“First, it’s important that people understand that for me, it was really a diptych,” Villeneuve said of the first two movies. “It was really a pair of movies that will be the adaptation of the first book. That’s done and that’s finished. If I do a third one, which is in the writing process, it’s not like a trilogy. It’s strange to say that, but if I go back there, it’s to do something that feels different and has its own identity.”

It is worth mentioning here that ‘Dune Messiah’ follows the story 12 years after the events of the first novel.

Villeneuve will have to age up the young cast including Timothee Chalamet, Zendaya and Florence Pugh among others.

Reacting to a question regarding the age difference, he said that he knew how to do that, however, he refused to share details of his plan.

Several US media outlets reported in April that the third movie in ‘Dune’ franchise was in development, which, Villeneuve has said would mark his final outing in the franchise

“Listen, if ‘Dune: Messiah’ happens, it will have been many years for me on Arrakis, and I would love to do something else,” he said.

“I think that it would be a good idea for me to make sure that, in ‘Messiah,’ there are the seeds in the project if someone wants to do something else afterwards, because they are beautiful books. They are more difficult to adapt. They become more and more esoteric. It’s a bit more tricky to adapt, but I’m not closing the door. I will not do it myself, but it could happen with someone else,” the ‘Dune’ director added.

The franchise, which is the live adaptation of Frank Herbert’s novels of the same name, follows protagonists Prince Paul Atreides (Timothee Chalamet) and Lady Jessica Atreides (Rebecca Ferguson) fighting for survival on a desert planet that has giant worms that protect a commodity called Spice after their family gets betrayed and destroyed by their own relatives.