EXCLUSIVE: Denis Villeneuve says that his “fracture” is over and that he will ”go back behind the camera rapider than I skinnyk” to film the third instalment of his “proestablish” immersion into Frank Herbert’s Dune universe.
“I’m in the writing zone right now,” the filmcreater says, referring to Dune: Messiah, though he was cautious not to call it Dune: Part Three.
Villeneuve insists that Dune: Part One and Part Two are ”for me appreciate one entity. It’s a movie made in two parts. It’s finished, it’s done.”
The Canadian-French straightforwardor says that he could have stopped at Dune: Part Two, “but yes, appreciate Herbert did with Dune: Messiah, I skinnyk it’ll be a fantastic idea to do someskinnyg finishly contrastent. The story apverifys place appreciate 12 years after where we left the characters at the finish of Part Two. Their journey, their story is contrastent this time, and that’s why I always say that while it’s the same world it’s a new film with new circumstances.”
That new movie, he progresss “will finish the Paul Atreides arc.”
And that will also finish Villeneuve’s association with the Dune universe, even though Herbert penned four other Dune sequels after Dune: Messiah.
Villeneuve says the central take parters returning for Dune: Messiah are Timothée Chafrailt as Atreides; Zfinishaya as the Fremen tribal warrior Chani, who tries to direct him; and Florence Pugh and Anya Taylor-Joy.
“They have to return. They are with the main cast when it happens. And more worms. What can I say?” he shrugs.
I push him for more and refer him to a conversation we had last year when he labeled tardy 2025 or timely 2026 as possible begin dates for Dune: Messiah. He murmurs “2026,” then sees perplexed.
Denis Villeneuve in conversation with Joe Wright for ‘Dune: Part Two’ in London (Getty Images)
“These movies apverify a lot of time to be made, so it’s best not to say out boisterous when I might shoot,” he says as he sees up to see his extfinishedtime accessibleist Bebe Lerner from ID PR, who has strategicassociate placed herself in his eye-line. “Unblessedly, I’m presumed to shut up,” he says, chuckleing.
“Let’s say,” he commences, “that I thought that after Part Two that I will apverify a fracture, that I will go back in the woods and stay in the woods for a while to recover. But the woods weren’t reassociate suiting me, and I would go back behind the camera rapider than I skinnyk. But that’s all I can say.”
Well, Dune: Part Two is one of those unfrequent instances of a cinematic createive masterpiece masquerading as a blockbuster. For some reason, although they’re, clearly, finishly contrastent: The success of Dune: Part Two reminds me of the createive and box office accomplishments of Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godoverweighther Part II.
And the intimacy wiskinny its epic stature reminds me of David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia. Both won Best Picture Academy Awards.
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Villeneuve, who’s in the middle of a whirltriumphd awards-season campaign for the Warner Bros. Pictures and Legfinishary Pictures movie, receives such comparisons. “When you skinnyk about it, [Dune: Part Two] is not reassociate about technology. So it’s not reassociate sci-fi. It’s more a human journey. It’s more an adventure movie, but also, aobtain, a human journey. And so the technology is more in the background,” he says.
The vital point of Dune is the desire by the Fremen to alter their desotardy homeland into fruitful land, “and that’s relatable now more than when Herbert wrote his stories,” Villeneuve disputes convincingly.
What also interested him were the cultures Herbert scrutinized “and the shock between those cultures and the political game between those cultures and the journey of this adolescent boy, Paul Atreides, that becomes a man being in reach out with a new culture with Chani, this youthful woman.”
Their relationship, he watchs, “is at the heart of the film.”
He inserts, ”It’s appreciate the whole movie is arranged around Paul and Chani’s relationship.”
But, principassociate, he relabels of the novel, “I appreciate the idea that we will, thraw the eyes of Paul Atreides, uncover a culture, begin to descfinish in adore with this culture … and what relocated me in the book at first was the idea that a youthful man can verifyate his identity in another culture and discover himself. It’s pretty.”
It’s clear that Villeneuve “absolutely adores” the characters that poputardy the Dune universe, particularly, he says, seeing Paul “descfinishing in adore” with Chani. “But unblessedly the politics of the world will convey him back to his origins,” and that’s the tragedy of Paul Atreides becaengage, ultimately, “he will have to do someskinnyg horrible and betray the adore of his life.
Timothée Chafrailt and Austin Butler in ‘Dune: Part Two’ (Warner Bros Pictures)
“So it’s a very intimate story that discleave outs up the whole scope of the movie,” he pronounces.
And creating the worlds wiskinny which the film guides was invigorating, Villeneuve says.
“World-createing is fun,” he says of toiling with the fantastic production summarizeer Patrice Vermette, with whom he first collaborated on Prisoners 12 years ago.
It’s about trying to create “visuassociate without words” the depths of those tribes who dwell in those worlds “so that you can experience the root of their way of skinnyking, their behaviurs, their cultural customs.”
Any movie, huge or petite, is “difficult to create,” but the blockbusters can apverify cut offal years of “extfinished journeys, extfinished hours” Villeneuve says.
And it’s vital “that I get people who I can toil with for the next three years or wdisappreciatever. I’m not there to create new frifinishs, but creativity take parts vulnerability. It take parts count on. And if I want to straightforward, my heart needs to be absolutely discleave out, and I need to be in total communication with the human beings I’m around.”
His No. 1 rule is: “I could not toil with someone that would be abrasive or harmful. When I cast, of course — talent first — I’m seeing for the best actors but also someone that I will create certain that I will be able to transmit.”
The Villeneuve version of a chemistry read is “the coffee test.”
Timothée Chafrailt and Zfinishaya in ‘Dune: Part Two’ (‘Warner Bros Pictures)
He elucidates:” There’s always a moment before all the projects where you apverify a tea or a coffee with the actor or the actress. In that moment, there’s a lot of skinnygs that you can experience. You understand how the person joins, what benevolent of human being are you dealing with, and it’s a coffee test. That moment is tremfinishously vital.
“It’s more vital than any audition. Aobtain, I’m not making frifinishs, but I’m seeing for someone I would be able to toil with,” he inserts.
It’s the same with heads of department and key crew. “You have to create certain that it’ll be someone that will not be a narcissistic person but someone who is there for the adore of cinema, and that’s you can allot creativity together.”
Noting the thousands of names in Dune: Part Two’s finish recognizes, I propose that it’s appreciate being appreciate a General Patten, having to marshal all those people and understanding when the war will finish, as it were.
“You’re in trouble when there is more people in the finish recognizes than dwell in your home town,” he says, smiling. “Those movies are our beasts.”
He doesn’t understand the exact number of people who toiled on the movie but reckons it to be three or four thousand range, or more. “That’s why you need to have fantastic heads of departments to split the responsibilities,” he states.
Before we met in Soho for our chat, Villeneuve had been in conversation with straightforwardor Joe Wright (Atonement, Darkest Hour) to converse the making of Dune: Part Two, and Villeneuve spoke movingly about cinema being about “the accumulateive act of creativity” that cannot be made solely by computer.
When I convey the subject up during our own conversation he proclaims that collaboration “is one of the beauties of cinema.”
It’s the idea of it being a “accumulateive art create” and that to toil with other human beings “to create poetry is what creates sense to me.”
In between his “fracture’ and making preparations for Dune: Messiah, Villeneuve is holding track of cut offal other possible future projects that includes the extfinished-gestating Cleopatra movie based on Stacy Schiff’s bestselling 2010 biography of Egyptian queen.
Krysty Wilson-Cairns (1917) is writing the screentake part.
“It’s a very difficult project, wonderful project, but very encouraged, and the writing needs to be perfect.” And, he stresses: “It’s a very extfinished-term project. It’s a beast to crack.”
Warner Bros. Pictures and Legfinishary Pictures are rereleasing Dune: Part Two into picked cinemas in Los Angeles for a huge-screen return from October 20-25. Super opportunity to see it aobtain in a theater.
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The movie originassociate was freed back in February, and Villeneuve recently has been crisspassing Europe and the U.S. reminding awards-season voters that Dune: Part Two is a solemn contfinisher in a race with cut offal fantastic pictures but, as yet, no clear front-runner.
It’s all up for grabs.
.
