The headlines:
Who’s in the cast of Dune: Part Two?
Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, and Javier Bardem will be back, alongside new additions Florence Pugh and Austin Butler.
When will Dune: Part Two be released?
The hotly anticipated sequel is set to land in theaters on March 1, 2024.
What’s the plot of Dune: Part Two?
It should pick up where Dune left off, tracking Paul Atreides’s rise to power and his subsequent rebellion against Emperor Shaddam IV.
Is there a trailer for Dune: Part Two?
Yes, there are two! See both in full below.
The details:
Those who survived Dune will return—and Zendaya will have a much bigger role
Timothée Chalamet will be reprising the part of Paul Atreides, the heir to a noble house who is heralded as a messiah, while Rebecca Ferguson, Javier Bardem, Stellan Skarsgård, and Dave Bautista are set to join him as Lady Jessica, Stilgar, Baron Harkonnen, and Glossu Rabban, respectively (Oscar Isaac’s Duke Leto Atreides sadly perished in the first film).
Also back? Zendaya as Chani, one of the fierce Fremen of the desert planet Arrakis who appears in Paul’s visions and crosses his path for the first time towards the end of Dune. Viewers have been assured that after the actor’s mere seven minutes of screen time in the first film, Zendaya will be more prominent in the sequel. If director Denis Villeneuve cleaves closely to the source material, Frank Herbert’s best-selling sci-fi novel of the same name, it should see her guiding and protecting Paul, and eventually emerging as the story’s romantic lead.
“When I did the casting for Chani’s character, I met a lot of actresses,” Villeneuve told La Repubblica in August 2021. “Zendaya wanted to audition and today, after shooting the film and seeing what a wonderful actress she is, I’m sorry I auditioned her. It was just because I didn’t know her. However, that day, she impressed me and when she left the studio I knew that Chani was her, the young desert tiger. I am honored to present two such explosive talents on screen [Chalamet and Zendaya] and I can’t wait to shoot the second part of Dune to get them back together knowing that in the next chapter Zendaya will be the [female] protagonist of the story.”
Florence Pugh and Austin Butler are in talks to join the cast
On March 8, 2022, it was reported that Florence Pugh was being courted to play Princess Irulan, the Emperor’s daughter who marries Paul for political reasons. Pugh and Chalamet have, of course, played a couple before, in Greta Gerwig’s heartwarming adaptation of Little Women. Then, on March 10, more news followed: Austin Butler, who went stratospheric after the release of Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis, in which he starred as the titular King of Rock ’n’ Roll, was in negotiations to play Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen, the nefarious nephew of Baron Harkonnen and his chosen heir.