With the incredible critical, box office, and fan response to the first two Dune movies (which make up one book), a third to cap off the trilogy was always extremely likely. Writer and director Denis Villeneuve always had three movies in mind, and the third has been greenlit. Dune Messiah follows the first two movies’ tale of Paul Atreides to essentially its end, and it will be the third film.
It just won’t be a very easy one to make. Dune Messiah is a good book and a very necessary part of the story, but it’s not written in such a way that the big-screen transition will be seamless. Neither were the first two parts of Dune, but this one will have unique difficulties. Here’s what they are, with some spoilers for both subsequent books ahead.
Dune Messiah Is Much Shorter
If you have the original trilogy in the current box set, you will notice that Dune Messiah is significantly shorter than the other two. With appendices and glossaries, the first Dune book reaches over 900 pages. Children of Dune comes in at 624. Dune Messiah? Just 336. That does ensure that it won’t need two parts, but it means there’s just not a lot of content to put into a full movie. Messiah is seen as an extended epilogue for Dune, making it a harder movie to translate.
Dune Messiah Was Written To Confirm What the Movies Showed
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Frank Herbert said he originally wrote it because people had missed that Paul Atreides was not a good guy in this tale. As such, it’s the “completion” of his arc and it’s further evidence that what Paul did was not right and it had an incredibly negative impact on the universe. That is so necessary to the book series, but with the movie’s changes, it’s not as needed.
Denis Villeneuve made some calculated changes to the book to further drive home the point that Herbert made in his books. Lady Jessica tells Paul they must “convince” everyone that he’s their Messiah. Chani (played by Zendaya), whose character is entirely different in the books, serves as an audience surrogate to see Paul for what he truly is, which is missing in the book.
Even those changes didn’t prevent modern-day movie audiences from struggling to grasp that the protagonist in the film is not a good guy or a hero, so perhaps some further proof is needed, especially when things get as dark as they do in Messiah. Still, the purpose of the movie won’t be the same as the purpose of the book, making for a much harder adaptation.
Dune Messiah Isn’t Really the End
Dune Messiah does a good job of wrapping up the story of Paul Atreides’ ascension to Emperor and what his Holy War did to the universe. It shows him grappling with what he’s done to Arrakis and the galaxy at large before offering some resolution to the tale. The end of the book seemingly puts a bow on his story, but those who read Children of Dune know that that is actually a red herring.
Paul returns in the third book as The Preacher, though it’s not a big surprise. The back of the book suggests that he could be Paul, and half the characters either believe he might be or assume he is until the reveal. Nevertheless, his appearance in this book confirms that his story wasn’t over in Dune Messiah and that a movie might have to consider that.
Children of Dune‘s Story Is Better
Much like the first, Children is a dense book with a lot of pages. It would be a difficult movie to adapt to screen, but it would probably make for a slightly better story. The second book in the original trilogy is good, but it’s focused more on political intrigue and internal strife with characters than anything that would follow the footsteps of Villeneuve’s epic films.
There are some things in Children of Dune that won’t be easy to bring to the big screen, but a lot of it would bring more action and drama to a screenplay than most anything Messiah has to offer. Some books just don’t translate as well into a movie, and that may be the case here. It’s worth noting that Villeneuve has no plans for a fourth movie, and it’s unlikely that Children ever gets the movie treatment.
Time Changes Provide More Hurdles
Time is important in the Dune franchise, but the movies already changed some things in regards to the timeline. Paul is 15 in the first film and by the time the events of the second transpire, he’s 18 and his sister, who remained a fetus in the movie, is three years old. Following a 12-year time jump to Dune Messiah, Paul would be 30 and Alia would be about 15 or 16.
The casting of Anya Taylor-Joy as Alia makes this interesting. She’s the same age as Timothee Chalamet, meaning they’d be trying to convincingly play a 14-year age gap in the next movie. This assumes Villeneuve didn’t hire Taylor-Joy for strictly two scenes in Part Two. The timeline is already off, and Taylor-Joy playing adult/teenage Alia makes things even more so.
And of course, if Villeneuve wants to beef up his third film by exploring some of Children of Dune, then he’d have to contend with a nine-year time jump. It all makes the story harder to tell, and it makes the release of the movies possibly further apart. It’s great that the crew behind the two smash hit Dune movies is finishing the story, but it’s certainly not going to be easy.
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