Dune’s Future After Messiah Will Prove Denis Villeneuve’s Most Controversial Book Change Right

Denis Villeneuve’s Dune movies have been incredibly successful, both critically and commercially, but those very same Dune movies made several changes from the books that will make it extremely difficult to continue the franchise into the future. The films are based on Frank Herbert’s hugely popular sci-fi epic of the same name, which later continued with several sequels and spinoff properties that helped expand this fictional world to a huge extent. While Villeneuve has done a great job capturing that enormous scope on the screen, the later sequels will prove difficult to fit into his cinematic world.

The main criticism that Villeneuve’s Dune has faced from fans of Herbert’s original novel is that it doesn’t quite capture the outlandish, absurd sci-fi concepts that make this universe so unique. He does a great job of making everything seem grand and epic, with the huge worms and complex politics, but there’s a weirdness to the Dune novel that isn’t captured in the film. This will only become more of a challenge in Dune Messiah, as characters like Scytale, Edric, and Hayt enter the story. However, Villeneuve’s decision to make his movies more grounded and realistic may actually prove smart.

The Dune Books Will Only Get More “Unfilmable” After Dune: Messiah

The Later Sequels Have Some Wild Sci-Fi Ideas

Close

With Villeneuve’s Dune: Messiah officially confirmed, it’s no surprise that fans of the franchise are beginning to speculate on how he will bring these unique characters from the page to the screen. The movie contains so many fascinating species, from psychic humanoid fishes to brainwashed revived corpses - it’s much weirder and less traditional than anything that was included in the first movies. And it only gets more absurd from there - later sequels would even see one character merge his physical form with a sand worm. It’s details like these that have left the Dune franchise considered “unfilmable” for so long.

Related Dune 3 Is Happening Much Quicker Than Messiah's Story Should & I Hope 1 Detail Isn't Changed Development on Dune 3 is moving quicker than expected for a Dune Messiah adaptation, and it hopefully doesn't mean Villeneuve changes this detail.

It’s these details in the later sequels that have deterred so many filmmakers from tackling the Dune franchise over the years, and while David Lynch produced a fascinating version in the 1980s, Villeneuve will be the first to get this far through the series. It will certainly be interesting to see how he tackles characters like Scytale and Edric in Dune: Messiah, as their physical forms and abilities certainly don’t fit with the grounded universe that he’s created in the first two films. Events in Children of Dune, and particularly God Emperor of Dune, are almost impossible to imagine on-screen.

Denis Villeneuve Making Dune More Grounded Can Help Future Adaptations

His New Approach Could Make The Series More Accessible

Custom image by Ana Nieves

Villeneuve will have to take more creative liberties than ever before with Dune: Messiah, but this could be the secret ingredient to finally making this franchise work on the big screen. It would be impossible to fully capture the eccentric magic of Herbert’s later characters, so perhaps grounding them in reality is the only way of making these stories work. They would certainly be different, and some audiences will undoubtedly take issue with the changes necessary to make it work, but it may be the only way of getting these stories in theaters without completely alienating the audience.

He’s taking an interesting approach to the sequels, changing the aspects that he feels aren’t suitable for the screen and giving them a new spin that’s more accessible.

Making Dune accessible is something that’s never been done before, but Villeneuve achieved it with his first two movies. The filmmaker has already changed major aspects of the story, such as Alia’s new role in Dune: Part 2, which means that certain details simply couldn’t be book-accurate anymore without a complete ret-con of the first two films. He’s taking an interesting approach to the sequels, changing the aspects that he feels aren’t suitable for the screen and giving them a new spin that’s more accessible. His films are much looser as adaptations, but this means they’re much more digestible.

Can Dune’s Movie Franchise Continue After Messiah Without Denis Villeneuve?

There May Be Room For Spinoffs If The Sequels Don't Happen

Custom Image by Debanjana Chowdhury

Since the first installment was released, Villeneuve has always wanted to make three Dune movies, exclusively following Paul’s storyline and ending with the shocking conclusion of the second book. However, it’s unlikely that Warner Bros. will let this successful franchise end so easily, most likely finding another director to carry the torch forward and either adapt the further sequels or continue with new spinoffs like Dune: Prophecy.

The future of the Dune franchise is definitely uncertain, and Dune: Messiah will be a great test for gauging how audiences react to the more outlandish, absurdist aspects of Herbert’s story. If it’s a success, then there’s definitely room for this series to explore the later books and get progressively weirder as time goes on, but as far as Villeneuve’s movies are concerned, a more grounded approach seems to be the smartest way of ensuring these stories get told while keeping general audiences on board.