Dune: Part Two finally completes the adaptation of Frank Herbert's classic. The film is filled with shocking moments, such as the relationship between Paul Atreides and Chani, which doesn't develop in a traditionally romantic way. As a result, the film ends with Chani's disappointed face as she attempts to capture and ride a sandworm. These terrifying, sacred creatures are crucial to the story, symbolizing Paul's coming of age and transformation. Because of this, Denis Villeneuve gave them special attention in the sequel. However, as he mentioned, his crew faced significant challenges with filming the related scene.
This past weekend, there was a panel discussion at the BFI London Film Festival where Ted Lasso star Brett Goldstein interviewed the director. During the talk, the sandworm scene from Dune: Part Two came up, specifically the one where Paul first captures and rides the massive creature. It was an intense process, as the scene was filmed over 44 days with a dedicated team they nicknamed the "worm unit." That's quite a lot of time, considering the shoot took place between July and December 2022. Villeneuve later admitted that they may have gone overboard, with some shots taking up to a week to perfect.
"I realized that I wanted to approach this without making any compromises. The most important question, when the scene involves visual effects, is how exactly to shoot it. I was determined to work with natural light. Then I thought it over and realized that, fundamentally, executing this scene would take months. Every single shot was very complex—sometimes it took half a day, other times a full day, or even a week. Just for one shot, because it was that intricate. If I had handled it personally, we'd probably still be filming today."
Obviously, Villeneuve gave the orders, but he wasn't present during the filming of the scene in question. It was coordinated by the leader of the "worm unit," Tanya Lapointe, who, according to the director, perfectly understood the concept and Villeneuve's vision. Lapointe also happens to be the director’s wife, so they had plenty of time to discuss the details. In fact, the studio executives could only praise Villeneuve for keeping the budget under $200M, especially with such spectacular scenes. Dune: Part Two was a box office success, grossing $714.4M.
Villeneuve is definitely going to adapt Dune Messiah, but after that, he plans to hand the franchise over to someone else. During the same mentioned panel discussion in London, he revealed that it wasn't Dune but rather the sequel to Blade Runner that was the riskiest project of his career so far.
