If you thought Paul Atreides had problems before—what with the galactic empire, the Fremen jihad, and the whole “becoming a religious figure against his will” thing—wait until you see him with a buzz cut. The first teaser for Dune: Part Three arrived with the subtlety of a sandworm emerging from the sand, and it turns out that ruling the universe is not great for your hairline or your mental health.
Denis Villeneuve gathered his cast at AMC Century City for a trailer launch event that had the energy of a coronation mixed with an intervention. Timothée Chalamet, fresh off his Oscar loss to Michael B. Jordan, sent a video message praising Villeneuve as “the master of cinema” and “a great artist” while presumably wondering why he keeps getting nominated for awards he doesn’t win. But the real stars of the event were the revelations about just how far into the future—and how far into despair—this third installment will go.
Part Three jumps forward seventeen years from the events of Part Two, which means we’re catching up with a Paul Atreides who has been Emperor for nearly two decades, who has presided over a holy war that has killed billions, and who has married Princess Irulan for political power while relegating his true love Chani to the role of concubine. It’s not exactly a happily-ever-after scenario, unless your idea of romance involves political machinations and religious genocide.
The teaser opens with a gut-punch of domestic bliss that quickly curdles. Paul and Chani, still together but clearly strained, discuss baby names. “Ghanima” for a girl, “Leto” for a boy—names that carry the weight of destiny and, for book readers, foreshadowing sharp enough to draw blood. This is Dune, after all, not a Nicholas Sparks adaptation, so the tender moment is immediately undercut by the reality of their situation: Paul is trapped in a marriage of state, Chani is trapped in a society that honors her but doesn’t respect her, and everyone is trapped in the jihad that Paul unleashed but cannot control.
Robert Pattinson makes his first appearance as Scytale, the Tleilaxu Face Dancer who serves as the film’s primary antagonist. His hair is shock-blonde, his stare is icy enough to freeze a small moon, and he looks like he’s having the time of his life playing a shape-shifting villain after years of being the brooding good guy. Pattinson joined the cast after mentioning to Zendaya on the set of their A24 film The Drama that he wanted in on the Dune universe. “I know a guy,” Zendaya told him. That guy was Denis Villeneuve, who apparently keeps his casting decisions as tightly controlled as the spice production on Arrakis.
Zendaya herself confirmed that she’s already seen the footage and described the experience of growing up alongside the franchise. “I’ve literally been able to grow up in my entire 20s doing them,” she said, making everyone else feel old and unaccomplished. Chani remains the “heartbeat” of the story according to Villeneuve, despite the fact that she spends much of Dune Messiah estranged from Paul and plotting against him. Love stories don’t get more complicated than “I love you but I also need to stop your holy war.”
The teaser features Paul with a military buzz cut—a visual signifier that the boy who wandered into the desert has been replaced by a soldier who has fought too many battles. He delivers the line “I’m not afraid to die, but I must not die yet” with the thousand-yard stare of a man who has seen too much and feels too little. Javier Bardem returns as Stilgar, the Fremen leader caught between loyalty to his messiah and horror at what that messiah has wrought. Anya Taylor-Joy’s Alia Atreides, Paul’s pre-born sister who carries the memories of generations, gets expanded screen time after her brief cameo in Part Two.
Jason Momoa also returns as Duncan Idaho, despite having died heroically in the first film. Villeneuve teased that “he comes back just at the right moment in the story,” referring to the ghola—a resurrected clone with all of Duncan’s memories but none of his emotional maturity—that plays a crucial role in the novel. Momoa’s presence suggests that Paul will be confronted with his past at exactly the moment when he needs to be looking toward his future.
Villeneuve shot much of the film on 65mm film, with significant portions captured on IMAX film cameras for the first time in his career. He kept the desert sequences digital because he likes “the brutality” of that format, but the IMAX footage promises visual grandeur that demands the biggest screen possible. The film arrives December 18, where it will face off against Avengers: Doomsday in what Chalamet and Robert Downey Jr. have dubbed “Dunesday.”
The teaser ends with Paul preparing for another battle, his face hardened, his hair shorn, his destiny inescapable. The boy who dreamed of the desert has become the man who rules it, and the universe is worse off for it. Welcome to Dune Messiah, where the hero’s journey ends not in triumph but in tragedy.
Mark your calendars for December 18, 2026, and see Dune: Part Three in IMAX—the only screen big enough to contain the tragedy of Paul Atreides.
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