Denis Villeneuve has been a busy filmmaker. The past several years have been 100% devoted to the two-film adaptation of Frank Herbert’s “Dune.” But after the massive success of both films, financially and critically, fans are desperate to know if or when he’s going to return to finish the story with “Dune: Messiah.”
In a new episode of the Little Gold Men podcast on Vanity Fair, Denis Villeneuve talked about the monumental task of adapting “Dune” for the big screen and why he’s not rushing to make ‘Messiah,’ even if film fans are dying to see it.
READ MORE: 2024 Fall Film Preview: 50 Movies To Watch
The filmmaker started the interview saying he had zero breaks between “Dune: Part One” and “Dune: Part Two.” He even went so far as to call the latter film “the biggest technical challenge of my life.” Villneueve said he was exhausted after the second film was done and said on the last day of press he slept for five days straight.
When the topic came around to “Dune: Messiam,” the filmmaker was careful to use the words “if” and “when,” and while he admitted the script was in the works, didn’t commit to saying it’s his next movie.
“The thing is, first, it’s really important that people understand for me, it was really a diptych, it was two movies, a pair of movies that will be the adaptation of the first book,” he explained. “So that’s done, that’s finished. So, if I do a third one, which is in the writing process, I will say that, for me, it’s a different object. It’s not like a trilogy almost, it’s strange to say, but I really want to—if I go back there—to do something that feels different and has its own identity.”
“Let’s say for me, ’Dune,’ in a way, is finished,” he continued. “And ‘Dune: Messiah’ will be something new that I will approach with its own different cinematic philosophy.”
For those that don’t know, ‘Messiah’ is actually set 12 years after the events of “Dune.” When asked how would he deal with that in terms of the cast, Villeneuve said, “That’s my problem,” he quipped, before getting serious. “No,” he chuckled, “I know how to do that,” but didn’t explain how.
You can hear the full interview below: