Villeneuve: Dune 3 may start filming in 2026 and is paying attention to the new Cleopatra movie

According to foreign media Deadline, Denis Villeneuve said his vacation is over and he will soon return to the camera to shoot Dune 3, which is currently in the creative state. Dune 3 is adapted from the second of Frank Herbert's six Dune novels - Dune Messiah (also known as Dune: Messiah).

Villeneuve insists that the first two Dune films "felt like one whole to me, it was a film in two, it was finished, it was over." He could have stopped with Dune 2, but "just like Herbert did with Dune, I thought it would be a great idea to do something completely different. Dune 3 takes place 12 years after the characters left at the end of Dune 2. Their journey and story are different this time, it's the same world, but it's a new film in new circumstances."

The new film "will complete the story arc of Paul Atreides," which will also end Villeneuve's involvement with the Dune universe, although Herbert wrote four other Dune sequel novels after Dune.

Villeneuve said that the main actors returning to "Dune" include Atreides played by "Sweet Tea" Timothée Chalamet, Fremen warrior Chini played by Zendaya, as well as Florence Pugh and Anya Taylor-Joy, "They must return, and there are more sandworms."

When asked about the start date of Dune, Villeneuve muttered "2026" but immediately said he was unsure, "These films take a long time to make, so it's best not to say out loud when I might start filming. I thought I would take a break after the second one and go back to the woods for a while to recover. But the woods aren't really for me, and I'll be back behind the camera sooner than I thought."

In Villeneuve's eyes, Paul and Chiné's relationship "is the heart of Dune, and the whole movie is built around Paul and Chiné's relationship." He said of the original novel, "I loved the idea that we were going to discover a culture through the eyes of Paul Atreides and start to fall in love with that culture... What struck me initially about the book was the idea that a young person could solidify their identity and find themselves in another culture. That's beautiful."

Villeneuve is very passionate about the characters in the Dune universe, especially seeing Paul "fall in love" with Chiné, "but unfortunately, the politics of the world will bring him back to his origins, and that's the tragedy of Paul Atreides, because ultimately he's going to have to do something terrible and betray the love of his life."

During his time off, and while preparing for Dune, Villeneuve has been eyeing several other possible future projects, including the long-gestating Cleopatra film, based on Stacy Schiff’s bestselling 2010 biography of the Egyptian queen. “It’s a very difficult project, a great project, but very ambitious, and the script needs to be perfect,” Villeneuve stressed. “It’s a very long-term project, and it’s a very difficult nut to crack.”