'Dune: Part Two' Has Begun Filming According To The Official Twitter Account
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There have been several attempts and adaptations of Frank Herbert’s grand space opera Dune, and notable directors have taken their shot at bringing the epic to the big screen, such as David Lynch and most recently, Denis Villeneuve. Villeneuve’s adaptation, while incomplete, proved to be a resounding success, but if the story of Dune as a film has told us anything, it is one not without caution.
The success of Part I of Dune seems to have been enough to green light Part II, and now, according to the official Twitter page of the movie, production is underway.
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The newest adaptation of Dune is only the second to make it to theaters. One other adaptation was made at the turn of the century, but that was straight to TV as a mini-series. Until recently, however, the adaptations had received mild success. There was an attempt at another adaptation by filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky, but it failed to ultimately gain any traction. A documentary was made about his vision for the film, however, titled Jodorowsky’s Dune.
The mixed success of prior Dune adaptations is partly due to the difficulty of adapting the book to film. While not that long of a book compared to other space operas, Dune does have one major difficulty that makes adapting it into an average two-hour movie time frame: the time jump. There is a point in the story where two years pass by before the build up to the climax occurs. On top of that, there is a lot of complex political maneuvering and world-building that is central to the story, and without some form of explanation and incorporation into the film, the rest would not make sense.
As a result, Dune is a gamble for studios to undertake, and if Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation is any indication, it’s a massive undertaking. Despite being released in the middle of a pandemic, with many theaters closed and the movie debuting simultaneously on home screens for streaming, the movie was considered a grand success and pulled in over $100 million domestically, and nearly $400 million globally. Part of the success this time around was due to the incredible lineup of acting talent that had been attached to the movie, actors like Javier Bardem, Zendaya, and Oscar Isaac to name a few. While some of them will not be in the second part of the film, the momentum of the first will likely carry over for what is easily the more thrilling part of the story.
Image Source: Cinemablend
Dune tells the story of young Paul of the great house Atreides in a sci-fi story set thousands of years in the future. In Dune, humanity’s reach stretches across the galaxy, and their dominion is ruled by an empire, and this empire is ultimately controlled by not a person, but a commodity: the spice. Spice is only found on the planet Arrakis, also known as Dune. Aside from spice, complex politics governs this empire, with the great houses of honorable Atreides in perpetual and often deadly rivalry with the industrious and corrupt Harkonnen. FTL travel between star systems is only possible through the monopoly of the Spacing Guild, which employs “navigators”, humans who have been intensely mutated by their ingestion of the spice and can guide ships through the chaos of the cosmos. Amidst all this, when the young Paul’s family and house are annihilated by a betrayal from the Emperor, and the scheming of their rival house Harkonnen, he is taken in by the Fremen, the natives of Arrakis. There, he learns about himself, and how to take Arrakis back from those who killed his family.
Dune: Part I is available for streaming through the HBO Max app.
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