During last week’s CinemaCon event, Dune director Denis Villeneuve showed off new footage from the forthcoming sequel (or, as he’d like us to view it, second half) of his sci-fi epic. Now, thankfully just a week later, us non-trade-show-attending civilians can see it as well. The first official trailer for Dune: Part 2 offers a vivid glimpse at one of the year’s most anticipated movies. Er, second halves of movies.
A new character narrates the Part 2 trailer, Florence Pugh’s Princess Irulan, who helpfully reminds us where we left off: With his father dead, Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) is living amongst the Fremen on the planet Arrakis, honing his skills to become the messianic Kwisatz Haderach and take revenge against the traitorous Harkonnen. Quick cuts offer glimpses of Part 2’s massive cast, including Paul’s love interest, Chani (Zendaya), his mother, Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), his mentor, Gurney (Josh Brolin), the evil Harkonnen’s Glossu (Dave Bautista) and Baron Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgård). This alongside new additions Lady Margot (Léa Seydoux) and Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen (Austin Butler, rocking a bald head that’s a far cry from Sting’s Heat Miser-esque look in David Lynch’s Dune).
From there, the trailer teases upcoming setpieces, including a distinctive black-and-white, gladiatorial-style battle between Feyd-Rautha and an unknown combatant, ornithopters heading into the sunset, Paul fighting Feyd-Rautha at dusk, and Paul rallying troops in the desert.
But the standout sequence, and one of the most anticipated scenes among Dune fans, is Paul playing with his sandworm as he tames (!) and subsequently rides (!!) one of the massive beasts introduced in the first film. Eat your heart out, Jake Sully.
Befitting the massive scale of part one, as reported at CinemaCon, IMAX cameras were used for the entirety of production on Part 2, making this the proverbial “must-see on the biggest screen possible.” Consider this our official plea to WB to re-release Part 1 on IMAX before this drops—or hell, have special showings for sickos who want to watch both parts back-to-back. Either way, fall’s biggest epic is shaping up nicely. It’s just a shame we have to wait until November 3rd.