The cast of “Dune: Part Three” is telling book readers to expect changes. In interviews with The New York Times, Zendaya, Robert Pattinson and Timothée Chalamet said Denis Villeneuve’s trilogy finale departs from Frank Herbert’s source novel, Variety reported Wednesday.
The film, which opens Dec. 18 from Warner Bros., draws mainly on “Dune Messiah,” Herbert’s 1969 sequel in which the emperor Paul Atreides faces conspiracies against his rule. Zendaya, who returns as Chani, said much of the film stays true to the book but includes “departures.” Pattinson, making his franchise debut as the shape-shifting plotter Scytale, said anyone faulting the changes would be “kind of crazy.” He called the script complicated and described the finished film as a political and moral fable, with deep emotion and a focus on parenting. Chalamet, who plays Paul, said he was satisfied with how Villeneuve ends the story. The film stands on its own, he said, and the bar did not drop so much as move.
The trailers have already suggested where the changes lie. The story picks up nearly two decades after “Part Two,” and Paul’s children, who are newborns late in the novel, appear as kids on screen. Chani may also play a part in the scheme against Paul, though in the book she stays loyal to him. Fans have not confirmed either point, and the studio has released no plot synopsis.
Villeneuve has long signaled his affection for the material. He has called “Messiah” by far his favorite book in the series and has said this will be his last “Dune” film. He has also described the new chapter as more tense and action-driven than its predecessors, and he replaced cinematographer Greig Fraser with Linus Sandgren, shooting some sequences with IMAX cameras.
Herbert wrote “Messiah” partly to undercut the idea of Paul as a hero, and that tension sits at the center of the adaptation. Chalamet, Zendaya, Florence Pugh as Princess Irulan, Javier Bardem as Stilgar, Anya Taylor-Joy as Alia and Jason Momoa as the resurrected Duncan Idaho all return, with makeup aging the cast across the time jump.
