Denis Villeneuve is ready to leave the Dune universe and says the franchise’s third installment will be the last with him at the helm.
The filmmaker also clarified that Dune 3 is not like a trilogy.
“It’s important that people understand that for me, it was really a diptych. It was really a pair of movies that will be the adaptation of the first book. That’s done and that’s finished,” Villeneuve said in an interview with Vanity Fair. “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.”
Dune Messiah is set 12 years after the first Dune book, so the film adaptation would need to age up its cast, including Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya.
“That’s my problem. I know how to do that,” the director said.
Although Villeneuve wants to depart the Dune universe, he doesn’t want the franchise to end and wants someone else to take over.
“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.”
