Dune Director Denis Villeneuve in Talks for New Movie, And It's Not Dune 3

Dune and Dune: Part Two director Denis Villeneuve is circling his next movie project – but it's not Dune 3. 

Villeneuve has been tapped by Legendary Entertainment to adapt the Annie Jacobsen book Nuclear War: A Scenario into a feature-film. Jacobsen's work in examining the modern government-military complex has put her in consideration for the Pulitzer Prize in 2015, with the release of her book The Pentagon's Brain: An Uncensored History of DARPA, America's Top-Secret Military Research Agency. Nuclear War: A Scenario was released earlier this year,  this year – you can check out the synopsis below: 

Every generation, a journalist has looked deep into the heart of the nuclear military establishment: the technologies, the safeguards, the plans, and the risks. These investigations are vital to how we understand the world we really live in—where one nuclear missile will beget one in return, and where the choreography of the world's end requires massive decisions made on seconds' notice with information that is only as good as the intelligence we have.

Pulitzer Prize finalist Annie Jacobsen's Nuclear War: A Scenario explores this ticking-clock scenario, based on dozens of exclusive new interviews with military and civilian experts who have built the weapons, have been privy to the response plans, and have been responsible for those decisions should they have needed to be made. Nuclear War: A Scenario examines the handful of minutes after a nuclear missile launch. It is essential reading and unlike any other book in its depth and urgency.

It's mentioned in the trade reports that Legendary could be angling to make its own Oppenheimer after seeing the success of Chris Nolan's film. Denis Villeneuve is being readily compared to Nolan right now, as cinephiles measure the two aueters works against one another. Oppenheimer took Nolan into a whole new era of filmmaking maturity and sophistication – with all the acclaim and awards (including "Best Picture" and multiple other Oscars) that come with it.

Villeneuve has just been crowned the new king of sophisticated, throught-provoking blockbusters (a title Nolan once held), so a socio-political prestige pic seems like a prudent next move. Villeneuve's style (accenting visual storytelling over exposition, with sparse amounts of dialogue) could fit well with a fast-paced story that creates a realistic look at real-time nuclear war protocols and responses. Seeing the frightening mechanics of information, beauracracy, military and political manuevring and the civilians caught in the midst of it would be a start eye-opener about how far out on the brink of annihilation we may be standing. 

Villeneuve has also been open about the fact that he wouldn't be getting to Dune: Messiah right away; last month he revealed in an interview that he has multiple other film projects lined up, while teasing that the most pressing of those projects would be Nuclear War: A Scenario: 

"I have four projects on the table, currently," Villeneuve told THR. "One of them is a secret project that I cannot talk about right now, but that needs to see the light of day quite quickly. So it would be a good idea to do something in between projects, before tackling "Dune Messiah" and "Cleopatra." All these projects are still being written, so we'll see where they go, but I have no control over that."

"I'm working on four different screenplays -- I know that Dune: Messiah will be one of them, I don't know if it will be the next or the second next," Villeneuve further revealed to Cine21. "My job was to try to keep the spirit of Frank Herbert alive as much as possible -- the whole meaning of Dune becomes clear with Dune: Messiah."

Dune: Part Two is now in theaters. Nuclear War: A Scenario is Now on bookshelves.