Overview
Sand won't just be found on Australia and New Zealand's beaches this summer. On the last day of the season, sand will fill big screens Down Under when Dune: Part Two finally hits cinemas. Originally slated to release in November 2023, then postponed during Hollywood's strikes, the film now has a Thursday, February 29, 2024 release date — and a new sneak peek at its sci-fi tale.
Will Dune movies just keep getting better and better? Here's hoping that's a natural outcome, just like spying sand as far as the eye can see across Arrakis, when the sequel to 2021's Dune arrives. The first time that Denis Villeneuve (Blade Runner 2049) followed in David Lynch's footsteps to make a new adaptation of Frank Herbert's novel, managing what Alejandro Jodorowsky sadly couldn't (see: excellent documentary Jodorowsky's Dune), he gave the world a stunning new science-fiction cinema classic.
Villeneuve's picture scored ten Oscar nominations and six wins; however, it only told part of Dune's story. Cue Dune: Part Two to keep the tale going. War has arrived on the franchise's spice-laden planet, and Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet, Wonka) and the Fremen are ready to fight. The former doesn't just want to face off against the folks who destroyed his family, but for the sandy celestial body, with Zendaya's (Euphoria) Chani at his side.
That's the tale teased in not one, not two, but now three trailers for the Dune sequel, with the third focusing on the battle to come. The 2021 film had Paul head to Arrakis because his dad Duke Leto Atreides (Oscar Isaac, Moon Knight) had just been given stewardship of the planet and its abundance of 'the spice' — aka the most valuable substance in the universe — and then get caught up in a bitter feud with malicious forces over the substance. It also saw Paul meet the population of people known as the Fremen, including Chani, plus Javier Bardem's (Lyle, Lyle Crocodile) Stilgar, which is who he and his mother Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson, Silo) are with in Dune: Part Two.
Expansive desert landscape, golden and orange hues (again, Villeneuve helmed Blade Runner 2049), sandworms, the director's reliable eye for a spectacle and Hans Zimmer's (The Son) latest likely Oscar-winning score: they've all shown up in the new film's three glimpses so far. So have some of the franchise's new players, with Austin Butler ditching his Elvis locks as Feyd Rautha Harkonnen, the nephew of Stellan Skarsgard's (Andor) Baron Harkonnen. Christopher Walken (Severance) and Florence Pugh (The Wonder) also join the saga as Emperor Shaddam IV and his daughter Princess Irulen.
From the first film, Josh Brolin (Outer Range), Dave Bautista (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3), Stephen McKinley Henderson (Beau Is Afraid) and Charlotte Rampling (Benedetta) return, while Léa Seydoux (Crimes of the Future) also joins the cast.
Off-screen, Villeneuve has brought back not just Zimmer, but Oscar-winning Australian director of photography Greig Fraser (The Batman), Oscar-winning production designer Patrice Vermett (Vice), Oscar-winning editor Joe Walker (The Unforgivable), Oscar-winning visual effects supervisor Paul Lambert (First Man) and Oscar-nominated costume designer Jacqueline West (Song to Song).
Check out the latest Dune: Part Two trailer below:
Dune: Part Two will release in cinemas Down Under on Thursday, February 29, 2024.