“It's not a trilogy!” Denis Villeneuve sees Dune 3 as a separate film

He also confirmed that he was a little fed up with the Frank Herbert saga and was ready to pass the baton to someone else.

After the $711 million collected worldwide at the beginning of the year with the second film DuneLegendary has obviously confirmed that a third film is in the works. Dune Messiah will be based on the novel by Frank Herbert and will still be carried out by Denis Villeneuve…even if the director does not approach the film as a direct sequel. For him, it will not be a Dune 3in the sense that it will not be the completion of a trilogy, but a film in its own right, as he explains this week in Vanity Fair's “Little Gold Men” podcast:

“It is important that people understand that, for me, I really made a diptych with Dune And Dune 2. It was really a pair of movies, adapting the first book. It's done and it's over.”

“Implicitly, this story is over and the third film will not be its conclusion.”If I make a third Dunewhich is currently being written, it is not to make a trilogy. It is strange to say this, but if I go back, it is to make something that will be different and that will have its own identity..”

The Messiah of Dune (the novel) takes place 12 years after the events of the first book. The film adaptation will likely age Villeneuve's young cast, which included Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Florence Pugh and others.I know how to do it “That's it,” he assured, without giving further details.

In any case, this next one Dune will be his last in the franchise. If the literary saga of Frank Herbert continued with other novels, Denis Villeneuve does not intend to do them all. But leaves the door open for others:

“If Dune Messiah happens, it will be many years spent on Arrakis as far as I am concerned. And I want to do something else. I think it would be a good idea for me to make sure that, in Dune Messiahthere are the seeds of a possible opening, if someone wants to do something else later, because they are beautiful books. But they are more difficult to adapt. They become more and more esoteric. It is a little more delicate… but I will not close the door (for others). I will not do it myself, but it could happen with someone else.”