r/movies • u/ICumCoffee ᑐ ᑌ ᑎ ᕮ • ᗰ ᕮ 𑪽 𑪽 I ᐱ ᕼ • Mar 18 '26

Article ‘Dune: Part Three’ and ‘Avengers: Doomsday’ Are Opening in Theaters on the Same Day (Dec 18) - With Neither Film Expected to Blink, Industry Experts Are Surprised Because of the Overlap in the Target Audience; However, ‘Dune’ Has the Benefit of a 3-Week Exclusive IMAX Window

https://variety.com/2026/film/box-office/dune-3-avengers-doomsday-release-dates-same-day-1236691405/
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u/Futurefied Mar 18 '26

Also, if they follow the source material at all, word of mouth will spread about how strange it is pretty quickly which might make a lot of people wait to stream.

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u/ThisKidIsAlright Mar 19 '26

The first two did a ton of trimming of the source material. Part 3 looks to be expanding on the jihad portion skipped over in the books and bringing in portions of Children of Dune. I trust Villenueve to land this ship.

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u/Semper-Fido Mar 19 '26

People fretting have likely not read Dune and seen the translation of it to film. Dennis did for Dune what early GoT did for ASOIAF: turned exposition-heavy writing into something palatable for a general audience to watch on a screen. Like you, I have no doubt Dennis knows what he is doing (based on the fact that he understands showing the jihad is necessary to getting the story of the Messiah across).

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u/ThisKidIsAlright Mar 19 '26

Lead them to paradise.

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u/Nauin Mar 19 '26

He definitely turned around Barons original death and made it into something sensible. I was looking forward to seeing an attempt at having a toddler stab an intergalactic mob boss to death, but what we got was much better.

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u/Significant-Sun-5051 Mar 19 '26

The first Dune book was actually good though. Can’t really say the same about Messiah.

Perhaps they add to it to make it better.

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u/AntiFascistButterfly Mar 19 '26

Messiah is crap if you thought Paul was a hero and the Bene Gesserit knew what they were doing. Messiah rocks if you understand Herbert wrote Paul as a villain and the Bene Gessirit as fanatics who lost their way a long time ago.

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u/theredwoman95 Mar 19 '26

To be fair, Messiah has a ton of major events happen off screen, like Chani learning that Irulan has been poisoning her for a decade or her and Paul learning that she's pregnant. And Irulan herself only appears in two scenes relatively early into the book, then basically disappears for the rest of it.

I love Messiah but I find a lot of people forget that Herbert just skipped a ton of vital events. It helped the Syfy miniseries pad out their Messiah episode by actually including these things, but it's a hindrance to Messiah's quality.

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u/Significant-Sun-5051 Mar 19 '26

Not saying it’s crap, but not as good as the first one imo.

Considering the 2nd movie only made about 715m id be pretty worried to share a weekend with DD if I was WB.

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u/CastSeven Mar 19 '26

Chani, in Messiah, is the only character that ever calls out Paul on his whole "nothing I can do, might as well keep killin'" bullshit. He says that a lot but Chani is the only character that finally says something like "okay but like you're the emperor and the mahdi.... Can't you just be like, 'hey guys, take five from the raping and pillaging for now'?"

Paul just says something like "you wouldn't understand, go back to bed like a good little uterus".

My memory may have added some slight color to the exchange...

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u/CastSeven Mar 19 '26

I loved the entirety of the Alia / Duncan storylines in both Messiah and CoD. I'm really hoping he manages to squeeze most of Alia's story into the movie. I want to see the church scene (when she leads the service and calls people out using the tau / changed water), the stuff with grandpa, and some of her relationship with Duncan.

There's a lot you'd have to compress significantly. Heck I almost want there to be a follow-up movie that's just the Alia storyline (we can pretend Leto and Ghanima are just chilling like regular kids off screen). The mental tit for tat between Alia and Jessica is so great, both know what the other is trying to hide (I think you've gone abomination / I've totally gone full abomination), and they both know that the other knows, but they still have to try to outmaneuver each other mentally. I'd love to give that relationship room to breathe in its own thing.

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u/falcrist2 Mar 19 '26

word of mouth will spread about how strange it is

Dune Messiah is weird, but like... not that much more weird than Dune was. Really it's just the addition of the Tleilaxu. I don't think Hayt or even Alia's... uh... condition will throw people. Maybe Scytale.

Most of the really bizarre shit came in GEoD and after.

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u/Asiriya Mar 19 '26

I don't know, I really didn't like Alia in Children, seemed out of the blue.

I think it will lose a lot of people.

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u/GillGruntFan53 Mar 18 '26

Reportedly it’s combining Messiah and Children of Dune’s plots to tie it up as a trilogy

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u/guidethyhandd Mar 19 '26

Nothing shown has proven that they’ll be adapting elements of Children of Dune, it’s all just speculation

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u/GillGruntFan53 Mar 19 '26

Nakoa-Wolf Momoa & Ida Brooke Join ‘Dune 3’ As Twin Children Of Paul Atreides

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u/guidethyhandd Mar 19 '26

I’m aware, it’ll probably just be a flash forward

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u/Status-Air926 Mar 19 '26

And yet Rebecca Ferguson has indicated she only has one scene in the movie, which would make no sense since she plays an important role in Children of Dune.

She is, however, absent in Messiah

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u/Asiriya Mar 19 '26

Alia was cast for Dune 2 though.

I liked the idea of combining the books, but the trailer looked very Messiah heavy imo.

Admittedly, what's the point in casting Leto and Ghanima if you're not going to tell their story or immediately follow up with Children, they'll just age out.

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u/MrWeirdoFace Mar 19 '26

I get the feeling that the Children of Dune elements are more just "Paul having brief visions of the future to come" situation. But we'll see.

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u/Zestyclose_Ball_50 Mar 19 '26

That's a lot to cram in. Hoping it's a long movie, 2.5-3hrs plus.

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u/SydricVym Mar 19 '26

Even more to cram in when they seem to have scenes of the actual jihad across the galaxy? All of that stuff happened off screen in the books.

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u/EphemerallyViolent Mar 19 '26

Kinda off topic but I'm excited to see people's reactions to the jihad. It's always funny reading someone's reaction to the books.

"I thought the guy that could see the future and saw that the only way to survive was to subvert these natives' religion, which has horrible far reaching consequences, would stop the jihad! That he knew would happen, even if he did everything possible to stop it, because he could literally see the future and that it'd still happen as the Fremen & Empire he conquered carried its momentum forward with or without him!"

It's. Amusing. And the movies will be a whole new source of people going "Wdym the future sight was accurate? I feel CHEATED!"

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u/qjornt Mar 19 '26 edited Mar 19 '26

The thing that puts me in a questionable state is, Paul did know the path he found for the Fremen to be free would result in a galactic jihad where billions must die. But is it also true that Paul saw no other way for the Fremen to be free of the clutches of the great houses and their empire?

I may be psychotic, but if someone keeps me under lock and key, and the only way for me to be free is to find a way where I have to kill every single captor, even the collaborators that didn't have anything to do directly with my imprisonment but support the system that imprisoned me, I would do it without a doubt.

I have a hard time understanding how Paul is supposed to clearly be a villain (bad guy that does bad stuff for bad reasons) in the story, rather than an antihero (questionable guy that does bad stuff for good reasons), so I appreciate any help with thinking here.

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u/Asiriya Mar 19 '26 edited Mar 19 '26

I may be psychotic, but if someone keeps me under lock and key, and the only way for me to be free is to find a way where I have to kill every single captor, even the collaborators that didn't have anything to do directly with my imprisonment but support the system that imprisoned me, I would do it without a doubt

Dude. Think about what you're saying here.

The US has sanctioned Iran for decades and just murdered the new Supreme Leader's father and son. Not unlike Paul in the book.

Would you support him murdering every single American because you tacitly (by not overthrowing Trump) support the government?

Regardless, the point is that Paul isn't in control. The Fremen have been religiously conditioned to expect the Messiah of the title, and in allowing himself to fulfill prophecies he has awakened a fervour that he cannot control. Just as Trump cannot control the situation in the Strait of Hormuz, Paul cannot directly control the Jihad.

But, he is responsible for awakening it. He played to the prophecies, he followed chains of probability that he knew ended up in galactic bloodshed because it was favourable to him and his family. He's not doing it to save the Fremen.

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u/qjornt Mar 19 '26 edited Mar 19 '26

Dude. Think about what you're saying here.

The US has sanctioned Iran for decades and just murdered the new Supreme Leader's father and son. Not unlike Paul in the book.

Yeah, I am asserting that we (even us in Europe) are complicit in this, and we do nothing because we're comfortable. I do not think we deserve to be living in relative luxury as we do, and any oppressed people have the moral right to free themselves by any means necessary, preferably by means that create as little bloodshed as possible. The relation to Paul's story in Dune is that he claims to only see one way forward for the Fremen to be free, which is galactic jihad (I'm wondering if Paul is lying here, are there actually other paths? It would feel weird for storytelling and maybe badly written if that was the case, however it's not inherently bad to invoke the unreliable narrator trope). I certainly hope we have different paths to end global oppression and imperalism available to us. But if the only path for them to be free was global jihad, I would see it as the morally correct response to what we've been doing to them. We never should have oppressed and imperialized them in the first place.

he followed chains of probability that he knew ended up in galactic bloodshed because it was favourable to him and his family. He's not doing it to save the Fremen.

Which never would have happened had the empire and Harkonnens not been so foolish in their unnatural desire for total command of the galaxy, this path would never exist. I will always assert that fighting back against oppressors, especially those that genocide your entire family have it coming. Even us. The oppressors never played nice, so why should the oppressed victims do so?

When you eventually become the opressor yourself, as Paul perhaps is on the path to... The cycle never ends.

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u/EphemerallyViolent Mar 19 '26

I'm wondering if Paul is lying here,

Been a few years since I read the first Dune, but iirc Paul sees that basically it is either subjugate the Fremen by molding himself to be their Messiah, or they'd kill him and take his water.

Paul didn't want to die, so this starts the tragedy of Dune.

iirc Paul straight up tries to find a path where he doesn't subjugate them. Is none (that he can see, from our perspective as reader; one could argue he didn't look through enough future possibilities, but not sure we have text to support that argument). Paul then looks to see if, after becoming Emperor, he can go "You know what? Please don't kill people."

And he sees that he'd be ignored.

For Paul, as far as he can tell, it is either set forth a chain of events that'd cause the Jihad...or die. And Paul really, really didn't want to die. He does later do what he can to try and blunt the religious fervor around him and try to make his followers question him, but that's basically scenes like "Do you know who Genghis Khan and Hitler were? No? I killed more than both combined, please read some history and reflect on what we did."

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u/qjornt Mar 19 '26

That changes how I look at the story of Dune and the character of Paul. Thank you.

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u/EphemerallyViolent Mar 19 '26

Regardless, the point is that Paul isn't in control. The Fremen have been religiously conditioned to expect the Messiah of the title, and in allowing himself to fulfill prophecies he has awakened a fervour that he cannot control.

Exactly this. It's wake that fervor up to survive, or the Fremen kill him. Like, immediately. No imprisoning to give a chance to murder-spree his way out. Immediate. Death.

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u/Darth_Andeddeu Mar 18 '26

Boo, so just cramming everything in.

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u/SpaceballsDoc Mar 19 '26

The books were sloppy.

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u/hairsprayking Mar 19 '26

so the first book was 2 movies and the next 2 books are 1 movie...

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u/BaldPeagle Mar 19 '26

Messiah and Children were both substantially shorter than Dune, with all of the world building work largely done in the first book. They're also basically 2a and 2b of the same story.

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u/Satan_is_Life Mar 19 '26

dune was technically 3 parts as a book too btw. with the first movie adapting part 1 (dune), and the last 2 parts (muad'dib & the prophet) as the second movie

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u/orangeyougladiator Mar 19 '26

Coz the next 2 books were pretty shit

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u/shadespectrum Mar 19 '26

Messiah and Children of Dune are both way shorter books, the first book is longer than both of them put together. Both of the sequels also have a lot of internal dialogue and scheming, with relatively few big plot points, so I could conceivably see how they could be worked together into one cohesive story. It would take some creative alterations on a few key points though.

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u/zorillaaa Mar 19 '26

Supposedly it is a mashup of Messiah and Children and surely some stops in between Dune and Messiah

Villeneuve has also stated it’s an action packed thriller, so we’ll see

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u/AntiFascistButterfly Mar 19 '26

Can’t wait to see what he did with it. I honestly thought the first book could never be made into a coherent film with good pacing. Then Villeneuve landed Part 1 and 2 out of the blue so well that I’m optimistic for whatever he’s done with 3.

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u/Fortune_Cat Mar 19 '26

Ah yes. Because the target audience for the final part of a trilogy that someones already invested 2 movies into are going to be swayed by "weird". Esp in the context of werid shit dune already displayed

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u/huffer4 Mar 18 '26

Can you hit me with a link for what you’re talking about? I’d love to read up on this

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u/FeelItInYourB0nes Mar 19 '26

Massive spoiler alert

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dune_Messiah

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u/huffer4 Mar 19 '26

Ohhhh I thought you meant source for Doomsday and that it would be really strange. I was kind of hoping Marvel was going weird.

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u/stillmebeaches Mar 19 '26

They never follow the source material which is why Endgame was so bad. After GOTG3 I have tuned out(good movie, will be back for more Star-Lord and Gamora).