The rollout for Dune: Part Three—or, as star Timothée Chalamet (Paul Atreides) calls it, DUN3—is now fully in motion.
Tuesday (March 17), Warner Bros. finally gave us the first proper look at what’s intended to be the final act of Denis Villeneuve’s Frank Herbert-adapting trilogy.
The timing here, of course, couldn’t possibly be better. Chalamet, a three-time Oscar nominee who turned in a career-best performance in Josh Safdie’s ping pong masterpiece Marty Supreme, went home empty-handed at this past weekend’s Academy Awards ceremony.
Now, it’s time for him to tap into some quasi-villain energy for the Dune rollout.
Arriving four years after Dune: Part Two, which stood tall as both a critical and commercial juggernaut, Dune: Part Three finds Villeneuve turning to Herbert’s 1969 novel Dune Messiah. As the director previously confirmed to Deadline, this does indeed mean that we can expect the film to pick up quite some time after the events of its predecessor.
“Their journey, their story is different this time, and that’s why I always say that while it’s the same world it’s a new film with new circumstances,” the Sicario and Blade Runner 2049 filmmaker said in 2024, adding that this trilogy-closing will “finish the Paul Atreides arc.”
He made similar remarks during a special TikTok livestream on Tuesday ahead of the new teaser trailer’s premiere, teasing that Chalamet’s character will be dealing with the “consequences” of power. During the same conversation, Villeneuve also confirmed that Hans Zimmer would be returning to score the film, though fans shouldn’t expect the music to be all that similar to the first two Dune entries.
Chalamet is joined for the third and final Dune outing by Zendaya, Robert Pattinson, Florence Pugh, Javier Bardem, Anya Taylor-Joy, Rebecca Ferguson, Jason Momoa, and more. Several of the stars—including Zendaya, Pattison, and Bardem—joined Villeneuve for the TikTok live event.
See the new teaser trailer above, then catch it on the biggest screen possible starting Dec. 18. As Villeneuve explained on Tuesday, he’s currently in the “cooking” process as the film nears its long-awaited release.
“If we have a girl, what will we name her?” Zendaya’s character, Chani, asks Atreides in the teaser trailer’s opening moments as the two discuss having a child.
Later, Atreides, who by the end of the new trailer is showing off a starkly different look than those from the first two Dune films, laments that “war feeds on itself” while wondering what his late father, Duke Leto Atreides, might have done.
“Your father never started a war,” Ferguson, as Lady Jessica, replies.
In the final seconds, Atreides expresses a defiance that surely hints at his fate.
“I’m not afraid to die, but I must not die yet,” he asserts.
