Denis Villeneuve is doing Dune 3

A third Dune film from Denis Villeneuve is in the works at Legendary, and after that, the director wants to adapt another story about a devastating war.

by Charles Pulliam-Moore

Apr 4, 2024, 10:03 PM UTC

An image of Timothée Chalamet in Dune: Part Two.

Image: Warner Bros. Pictures

Charles Pulliam-Moore is a reporter focusing on film, TV, and pop culture. Before The Verge, he wrote about comic books, labor, race, and more at io9 and Gizmodo for almost five years.

Variety reports that following the massive box office success of Dune: Part Two, Legendary has tapped Denis Villeneuve for a third installment that would presumably continue the story of how Paul Atreides goes on to conquer the galaxy. Earlier this year, Villeneuve told Empire that he had already “put words on paper” thinking about where he would like to take the Dune franchise going forward.

Legendary has yet to announce any sort of timeline for when production on Dune 3 might begin. But the studio intends for the movie to debut before its next project with Villeneuve — an adaptation of Nuclear War: A Scenario, Annie Jacobsen’s 2024 Pulitzer Prize-nominated nonfiction book about how nuclear war scenarios would likely play out. From the sounds of it, Villenueve’s going to be plenty busy in the next couple of years, and his next projects are probably going to leave us in varied states of shock and awe when they hit theaters.

Correction April 4, 6:10 PM ET: An earlier version of this story incorrectly described Nuclear War: A Scenario as having won the Pulitzer Prize rather than being a nominee and finalist. We regret the error.

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