Yesterday came the sad news that Denis Villeneuve’s sci-fi epic “Dune: Part Two” was being delayed from its planned November release to a March 15th 2024 opening.
The move was understandable as both Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary, having had to release the first film at the height of the pandemic, want to give the second film every chance and so want its stars out there promoting it.
Now, ahead of the release, Empire has done a feature story on the film and spoke with Villeneuve whilst he was deep in the post-production phase of the film saying he’s “exhausted, but a happy director”.
He says the movie pays off a lot of the heavy lifting and setup the first part does: “Part One was like the promise of something, but Part Two delivers on that”. He then goes on to explain how the new film will be a much more emotion and action driven story:
“The first movie was more contemplative – a young man discovering a world. Here, it’s a war movie. At the very core is a love story between Paul and Chani. How Paul will gain her trust, how she will open her heart to him, and how they will find a way to free Chani’s world from the Harkonnen grip. It’s a much more emotional movie.”
The new film will see Timothee Chalamet’s Paul Atreides as he follows Zendaya’s Chani to the home of the Fremen on the desert planet Arrakis as Paul soon comes to lead the rebels against House Harkonnen who is occupying the planet.
Villeneuve also spoke about how Chalamet’s Paul Atreides changes in the new film, saying this isn’t your basic hero/savior story:
“I remember when I was doing Part One, I kept saying to Timothée, ‘No, you’re just Paul.’ Because he was reaching for Muad’Dib. He was looking forward to becoming that hero and I was pushing the brakes. He [Paul Atreides] has the power to change things, but he knows that if he does so, it will create an astronomical amount of violence and he will become a kind of dictator. He’s trying to find a way to avoid that ominous future – that’s the burden upon his shoulders.”
“Dune: Part Two” will now open in cinemas in March.
