Denis Villeneuve will return to Frank Herbert’s universe in at least one sequel to the film currently on the billboard.
It was seen coming but until this week it has not been officially confirmed: Denis Villeneuve’s ‘Dune’ will have at least a first sequel, as the director had anticipated. The film has already passed 225 million worldwide, just after reaching such important markets as the US and China this past week. Through social networks, Legendary, one of its production companies, has communicated that the second installment of the saga is underway and that it will only be seen in theaters in 2023, predictably directed again by Denis Villeneuve.
Villeneuve has been a fan of Frank Herbert’s collection of novels since the age of 14 and accepted the project on the condition that it was not limited to a single installment. «I would not have agreed to make this adaptation of the book into a single film. The world is too complex. It is a world that takes its power from the details ”, he declared to ‘Vanity Fair’. In fact, the director’s idea was to shoot the first two installments simultaneously, but the studio did not agree: they agreed to record the second only if the results of the premiere were as expected.
Warner CEO Ann Sarnoff had stated that the second part would be shot shortly in an interview with Deadline: “If you watch the movie, you see how it ends.” However, it seems that Legendary had the last word; Aside from co-producing ‘Dune’ at 80%, it owns the film rights to Herbert’s work, previously adapted by David Lynch.
Legendary was unhappy with HBO Max’s decision to release the film on its platform simultaneously with its US theatrical release, as was Villeneuve, who had said in Variety: the ‘Dune’ scale ”. Finally, a launch strategy was chosen that consisted of paying Legendary the amount that it would have received if the film had been a box office success, and the director and the actors a millionaire compensation.
The universe of ‘Dune’ is the political, scientific and social setting invented by Frank Herbert for the original saga of six science fiction novels. The first book in the series, ‘Dune’ (1965), was first adapted into the film ‘Dune’ (1984) by David Lynch and into a television miniseries (2000); the second and third parts were adapted into another television miniseries (2003). The ‘Dune’ universe has also inspired several video games, including ‘Dune II’, one of the first modern real-time strategy games.
Following the death of Frank Herbert, his son Brian and science fiction author Kevin J. Anderson have produced a number of books on the days before the start of the series that have been quite commercially successful. However, there are disputes among the fans of the original saga about whether they are part of the ‘Dune’ canon properly or not. In 2006 the same authors published a continuation of the original saga entitled ‘Hunters of Dune’, and in 2007 the eighth and final ‘Sandworms of Dune’. These continuations and previous trilogies are partially based according to the authors on notes by Frank Herbert himself, discovered a decade after his death.
The current movie ‘Dune’ has cost $ 165 million, not counting marketing expenses. So far, it has raised $ 41 million in the United States alone, and its total collection amounts to more than $ 225 million worldwide. It seems that the trend of shooting expensive trilogies in one go has given way to the precaution of looking first at the financial success of the first installment.
Javier Bardem in ‘Dune’.
This first installment has starred Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Oscar Isaac, Rebecca Ferguson, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin and Jason Momoa. Although Chalamet is currently filming ‘Wonka’, he has been eager to resume the project, as has Zendaya, whose role will have much more prominence in this second installment. Denis Villeneuve is also expected to take charge of its realization again.
One of the greatest qualities of ‘Dune’ is the recreation of an entire socially, politically, economically and religiously articulated universe: the rigid feudal structure of the Empire of the Known Universe facing the rise of a messianic leader on the key planet of its interplanetary economy: Arrakis, the only known source of melange, a drug that expands the mind and allows interplanetary flight and therefore the cohesion of the Empire.
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