Timothée Chalamet spoke about Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune: Part 3” during a Variety & CNN town hall event with Matthew McConaughey and described the final chapter as the “eeriest one” of the trilogy so far.
He explained that with Villeneuve, he and the cast had a great creative rhythm, and that this chapter ended up being creatively bold — “a big swing” — rather than just grand or epic in the usual blockbuster sense, treating every moment as “sacred” and avoiding complacency.
Chalamet said his performance referenced and was influenced by Heath Ledger in “The Dark Knight” and Marlon Brando in “Apocalypse Now,” performances which have actors who can “sneak in something,” a unique acting style, within a large-scale film.
Once Chalamet realized that what he had just said might lead some to think he was literally claiming to be on the same level as Ledger or Brando, he added, “I cannot put myself in that same boat… let’s just say it’s these big movies where you could sneak in something. A curveball.”
These latest comments from Chalamet come after he confided, just a few months ago, having delivered “top-level shit” these last “seven or eight years,” starting with his work in “Call Me by Your Name”, and then, in order of release date, “Lady Bird”, “Beautiful Boy”, “The King”, “Little Women”, “The French Dispatch”, “Dune”, “Don’t Look Up”, “Bones and All”, “Wonka”, “Dune: Part Two”, “A Complete Unknown”, and “Marty Supreme”.
Now, the big question on everybody’s mind is how Villeneuve plans to adapt “Dune: Messiah.” Frank Herbert’s second book is notoriously dense, slow-burning, and not exactly crowd-pleasing. Paul Atreides becomes a full-on tyrant, and the tone is far more meditative than the first two films. If Villeneuve stays faithful to the book, we’re in for a very different kind of movie than the first two — less spectacle, more political and spiritual disillusionment.
Though early reports had referred to the film’s title as “Dune: Messiah,” Warner Bros. appears to be going with a more straightforward numerical approach. This further hints that Villeneuve could be tackling not just Messiah, but also parts of the fourth book, “Children of Dune.” Furthermore, Nakoa-Wolf Momoa and Ida Brooke are part of the cast as Leto II and Ghanima, the children of Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) and Chani (Zendaya). Momoa and Brooke’s inclusion means rumors of a time jump in the upcoming sequel.
Warner Bros. is very serious about keeping that December 18, 2026, release date, which is the same day “Avengers: Doomsday” hits theaters.
If the movie is as rough as some in the industry seem to fear, that teaser may have been less of a marketing campaign and more of a public plea for somebody to finally take the damn thing.