Dune is finally here, and fans are loving Denis Villeneuve’s epic Sci-fi adventure, with its incredible visuals and standout performances from beloved stars. Dune has exceeded box office expectations, and now everyone is expecting a sequel to continue the story that leaves so many possibilities on the table. Villeneuve has been adamant about Part 2 being necessary, and it looks like it was heavily in mind as he made the first part. Dune’s Denis Villeneuve on sequel news and how long it’ll take to start filming.
With the release of Dune and its success on both streaming and the box office, a sequel is a certainty and seems to have been the plan since the beginning. While speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Villeneuve has responded to news of a sequel being confirmed and how long it will take to get everything going once again, saying:
It’s fantastic news, but it’s also kind of a burden. The good news is that a lot of the work has been done already regarding design, casting, locations and writing. So we’re not starting from scratch. It’s not a long period of time, but I will try to face that challenge because it’s important for me that the audience sees Part Two as soon as possible. It’s not a sequel where it’s another episode or another story with the same characters. It actually has direct continuity to the first movie. It’s the second part of the big, huge movie that I’m trying to do. So the sooner the better.
Denis Villeneuve is excited about the sequel and is confident that he can meet the challenge of making part two of Dune in a relatively timely fashion. The director says the designs, casting, and writing is already done, so the main obstacle is putting everything together and coordinating from a production standpoint to start filming. Since the beginning, Villeneuve obviously had a plan for a sequel, and the game of cat and mouse between himself and Warner Bros. about a sequel has panned out well for both sides. Villeneuve goes on that the spring is too early to film, saying:
No, that’s too soon. We still have a lot of work to do. It’d probably be more toward fall, and even that would be fast.
Fall of 2022 seems to be when the director expects to start filming Dune 2 at the earliest. Fans will have to wait a couple of years to continue Paul Atreides’ journey, but it could have been much longer had the foundation for the sequel not already been laid out by Villeneuve. Dune is in the perfect position to be the next big franchise in line with something like The Lord of The Rings trilogy with the scope and scale of something like Star Wars.
Tenet director Christopher Nolan has praised Dune after Villeneuve raised his time-bending action movie, as both directors have had public struggles with Warner Bros.' day and date release strategy for films. The strategy doesn’t seem like it affected Dune’s prospects for the franchise's future and may have opened up the film to even more fans than usual since it was so accessible. Villeneuve’s complete vision was captured within the film, so there will be no director’s cut like Jason Momoa has suggested. We will just have to wait for the sequel to get a more complete picture of everything.
Now that the sequel is confirmed, fans have been debating who should play an iconic character in Dune 2, and the prospects are exciting. There is a lot to know about the next installment of Denis Villeneuve’s epic, and diehard fans of the books and newly interested admirers alike cant wait to see what is in store in part two.
