It will probably be a while before Denis Villeneuve takes us back to Arrakis for Dune: Part Three, but he already has a good idea of what the story will look like. Villeneuve adapted Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel Dune into two movies, and he hopes to continue with an adaptation of Herbert’s 1969 follow-up novel Dune Messiah. He recently summarized his plans for that sequel during a panel event, giving us something to compare with the book and predict where Paul Atreides is headed.
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Villeneuve spoke about Dune at Deadline‘s Contenders London event last month, on a panel with producers Mary Parent and Tanya Lapointe. They talked about the success of Dune: Part Two this year and the pair of films overall, noting that they succeeded in being more faithful to Herbert’s novels than previous adaptations. Filmmakers always need to make cuts and changes from the source material, but Villeneuve was satisfied that he had been “faithful to Frank Herbert’s vision about the idea of a cautionary tale, about being careful with charismatic figures, and the danger of blending religion and politics.” He and Parent also discussed the love story between Paul and Chani – the “essence” of the story.
For Villeneuve, an adaptation of Dune Messiah will be different. He said: “In order to save his friends, [Paul] has to start a war.” This teaser is not much of a surprise, since fans watched Paul and the Fremen armies fly off to battle at the end of Dune: Part Two. However, it does give us a hint about which elements of the book Villeneuve wants to focus on. Those who have read it will recall that a lot of the fighting in Dune Messiah takes place off-screen, while the narration focuses on drama within the imperial court, political plots and cultural revelations.
What Happens in Dune Messiah?
We can look at the plot of Dune Messiah and speculate about which parts will get screen time and which might be cut, but fair warning: there are spoilers ahead! The novel picks up a full 12 years after its predecessor, with Paul now installed as the emperor of most of the known universe. He grapples with the immense toll of the Fremen Jihad he started, with a death toll of 61 billion people. However, his prescient visions show that this was far from the worst path for humanity.
Paul is married to Princess Irulan, but refuses to have children with her. In retaliation – and under orders from the Bene Gesserit – Irulan sneaks contraceptives into Chani’s food, meaning Paul has no children at all. The Bene Gesserit plot with the Spacing Guild to take down Paul, along with a powerful civilization known as the Tleilaxu, whose experiments with genetic engineering have made them very different from other humans. This coalition gives Paul a gift – a clone of Duncan Idaho created by the Tleilaxu. It has the intended effect of damaging his political position and putting an agent close to him at the same time. The details of this plot are difficult for Paul to predict because the Spacing Guild also has prescience, meaning they cancel out each others’ views of the future.
Desperate, Chani switches to a traditional Fremen fertility diet that Irulan cannot tamper with, and she gets pregnant. However, after years of contraception, Chani’s reproductive system is weakened and she dies in childbirth. She gives birth to twins who are like Paul’s sister – they are born fully conscious with access to their ancestral memories. Meanwhile, Paul is blinded in a nuclear terrorist attack that kills many others. He decides to leave the empire behind, walking alone into the desert to become a lone hermit. He intends for his sister and his children to inherit the empire, and to take on the burdens of prescience he couldn’t bear.
What Will Villeneuve Focus On?
It’s clear that the action scenes will get priority in Villeneuve’s movie, so we can expect scenes of the jihad, the terrorist attack and the assassination. Beyond that, there are a lot of questions to answer. Unlike the books, Paul and Chani were not on good terms at the end of Dune: Part Two, so the movie will need to explain how they reconciled their relationship. It’s also hard to imagine Villeneuve dedicating a lot of screen time to the Tleilaxu, since they are a brand new element completely ignored in the previous movies.
Villeneuve recently spoke about Dune: Part Three in an interview with Vanity Fair, saying that he wants to make this movie but no others in the franchise. That would leave another filmmaker to adapt Herbert’s other four books, which get more and more esoteric as they go. Villeneuve also said: “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.”
That means the sky is the limit for Dune: Part Three, with no obligation to match its predecessors too closely. The movie is officially in development right now, with no release date or even production schedule in place. Dune and Dune: Part Two are streaming now on Max. Herbert’s books are available in print, digital and audiobook formats.
