Timothée Chalamet in talks to star in Denis Villeneuve’s Dune

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Following BLADE RUNNER 2049, Denis Villeneuve is set to take on another sci-fi epic as his next project – a new adaptation of Frank Herbert's "Dune", and Deadline has reported that Villeneuve is very close to securing his leading man.

Timothée Chalamet (CALL ME BY YOUR NAME) is in final talks to star in Denis Villeneuve's DUNE project as Paul Atreides, the young nobleman who is the central figure of Frank Herbert's series. The story is "set in the far future involving worlds beyond Earth, ruled over by competing feudal families who control access to a drug called Melange. Known popularly as 'spice,' the drug gives its users heightened consciousness and an extended lifespan at the cost of crippling addiction and fatal withdrawal. Spice, use of which makes interstellar travel possible, is found only on the desert planet of Arrakis — aka 'Dune' — and as such is the most valuable commodity in the galaxy." Some of you even picked Chalamet for the role in JoBlo's Cast This earlier in the year, so give yourselves a pat on the back. Timothée Chalamet recieved much acclaim for his role in CALL ME BY YOUR NAME, even snagging an Oscar nomination for Best Actor, the youngest since 1939, so his involvement is a great first step on what will be a long casting process. The project has typically proven to be notoriously difficult to adapt, but Denis Villeneuve has said that his goal is to make DUNE into "two films, maybe more," which would certainly be a good way to ensure Herbert's dense story isn't cut into a million pieces.

Denis Villeneuve's plans for DUNE are quite ambitious, and he's previously said that he hopes to make DUNE into the STAR WARS movie he never saw. "Most of the main ideas of Star Wars are coming from Dune so it’s going to be a challenge to [tackle] this," Villeneuve said. "The ambition is to do the Star Wars movie I never saw. In a way, it’s Star Wars for adults. We’ll see."

What are your thoughts on Timothée Chalamet starring in DUNE?