War, inheritance and…a baby? First Dune: Part Three trailer is here

Timothée Chalamet may have finally escaped Oscar season, but not movie promotion – the first look at Dune: Part Three is here.

The first trailer released for the final installment in Denis Villeneuve’s sci-fi trilogy sees further war and political upheaval in the galaxy beyond Arrakis – plus a possible future child for Chalamet’s Paul Atreides and Chani, the Fremen warrior played by Zendaya. “If we have a girl, what should be name her?” Chani asks, suggesting the two have reconciled since the end of Part Two.

That ending, a major departure from the 1965 tome by Frank Herbert, suggested that Villeneuve will make significant changes to the sequel, 1969’s Dune: Messiah, the basis for Part Three which has long been considered too weird, meandering and dense to adapt.

The trailer for the final chapter also hints at the further expansion of Paul Atreides’s imperial rebellion, with several sneak peeks of spaceship battles, slaughter on land and a new villain in the platinum-haired Scytale, played by Robert Pattinson. “War feeds on itself,” Chalamet’s Paul tells his mother, played by Rebecca Ferguson, in ominous voiceover. “The more I fight … the more our enemies fight back. I’m doing the best that I can to protect my family. How did father do it?”

“Your father never started a war,” she responds.

On Monday evening, Warner Bros released stills of nine characters from the movie teasing the “epic conclusion” and several new cast members, including Pattinson; Jason Momoa, returning as the reincarnated Duncan Idaho; and the previously unannounced Isaach de Bankolé as the Fremen leader Farok.

Chalamet, as Paul Atreides, appears much different than the fresh-faced youth of the previous entries, with red scarring around his eyes and a menacing stare, while Florence Pugh, as Princess Irulan, and Anya Taylor-Joy, as Paul’s now-adult sister Alia, appear with faces caked in mud and blood, respectively.

In a video message played ahead of an exclusive screening in Los Angeles on Monday, Chalamet celebrated a production process of more than 150 days over eight years helmed by “the master of cinema, the great artist that is Denis Villeneuve”.

“Denis always says ‘vive le cinéma’, and with this third film, I think he has done just that: a true act of cinema,” he added. “I am not alone in saying thank you to Denis for his dedication in bringing the Dune films to life, and now the Dune trilogy to life.”

Villeneuve apparently did not intend to return to the Dune universe so soon after Part Two. “I went to my crew and said, ‘I’m taking a break. That’s it. Bye-bye,’” he said at the trailer launch event, according to the Hollywood Reporter. “I went back home and I kept waking in the middle of the night with those images. I was supposed to do another movie.”

But “the image of Dune: Part 3 … kept coming back and coming back. I said, ‘All right, let’s do it.” Strong positive fan reactions to the second movie also encouraged him to complete the trilogy faster than planned. “It’s a very different movie than the first ones. It’s a good idea to come back to those worlds, not by nostalgia, but by urgency,” he said. “If the first movie was contemplation, a boy exploring a new world, and the second one is a war movie, this one is a thriller. It is action-packed and tense. More muscular.”

The new movie takes place 17 years after Part Two. “We see Paul dealing with the consequences of having too much power,” said Villeneuve. But though Part Three follows people attempting to overthrow Paul, “the heartbeat of the film is still the relationship between Paul and Chani.”

The first Dune, released as a standalone film in 2021, went on to make $402m worldwide despite a simultaneous release on HBO Max – a pandemic-era success – and receive 10 Oscar nominations, winning six. Part Two, released in March 2024, became the seventh-highest grossing film of the year with more than $715m worldwide (and five Oscar nominations, including for best picture).

Villeneuve reportedly shot the film last summer in Budapest, Hungary, and the Arabian desert, in part on Imax cameras. The film is scheduled to hit theaters on 18 December this year.