Why Dune Doesn’t Have Post-Credits Scene Revealed by Director

Scenes that take place after a film’s credits have been around for decades, but it was the birth of the Marvel Cinematic Universe that helped cement the idea of sticking around through the credits to catch a glimpse of what could come next in a major franchise, and while Denis Villeneuve’s Dune is confirmed to only be a portion of the original Frank Herbert novel, the filmmaker recently detailed that he’ll never use such a sequence for any of his movies. Despite audiences loving these teases of future projects, Villeneuve feels as though they undercut the final frames of his movies and the emotion he aims to evoke. Dune is currently in theaters and on HBO Max.

“I don’t like post-credits scenes,” Villeneuve revealed to NME. “There is a very specific final emotion that I was looking for with the final frame [of Dune] and I don’t want to mess with that. So no, I don’t use post-credits scenes. I’ve never done that and I would never.”

To say this new adaptation was an ambitious undertaking would be a bit of an understatement, as Herbert’s original novel is considered one of the most beloved sci-fi stories of all time. The story was previously adapted into a 1984 film from David Lynch, with that film’s shortcomings largely being centered around its attempts to capture the sprawling nature of the source material and falling short. In the years since, the story has also been adapted into miniseries, which allowed more time to deliver audiences all the nuances of the novel.

With a project like Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy, he shot all three films at the same time, with the studio having committed to the project regardless of how lengthy the entire experience would be. With Dune, on the other hand, Villeneuve knew he wasn’t telling the entire story and wanted to make a sequel, but Warner Bros. has yet to commit to moving forward on the production. In this regard, the countless moving parts required to make a follow-up means it likely wouldn’t hit theaters until 2023 at the earliest, and that’s only factoring in the film’s impressive cast all being able to find the time in their schedules to shoot a follow-up.

Villeneuve did reveal to the outlet that he was “pretty optimistic” about the sequel and noted, “I think there’s a lot of enthusiasm in the reaction that we’ve got so far, but it’s my understanding that [the producers] want to wait and see the overall reaction before making a decision.”

Dune is in theaters and on HBO Max now.

Do you wish the film had a post-credits scene? Let us know in the comments below!