Skarsgard and Bautista join Villeneuve’s Dune adaptation

Last Updated on July 21, 2021

With a spring production start swiftly approaching, director Denis Villeneuve has found a pair of villains for his cinematic adaptation of the classic Frank Herbert novel DUNE.

Villeneuve had already cast Timothée Chalamet in the lead role of

Paul Atreides, whose family assumes control of the desert planet Arrakis. As the only producer of a highly valuable resource, jurisdiction over Arrakis is contested among competing noble families. After Paul and his family are betrayed, the story explores themes of politics, religion, and man’s relationship with nature, as Paul leads a rebellion to restore his family’s reign.

Rebecca Ferguson has also been signed on to play Paul's mother, Lady Jessica.

Joining Chalamet and Ferguson are Dave Bautista, who previously worked with Villeneuve on BLADE RUNNER 2049 (pictured above), and Stellan Skarsgard. Skarsgard will be playing the villainous Baron Harkonnen, "whose family previously ruled Arrakis and has a long hatred of the Atreides family, plotting with the galactic emperor to destroy it." Harkonnen has two troublesome nephews in the source material, and Bautista is said to be playing one of those nephews, described as a "brutish" character.

I'm guessing this means Bautista is playing Glossu Rabban, since Harkonnen's other nephew, Feyd, is 16 years old. A thirty-something Sting and an almost-thirty Matt Keeslar played Feyd in the previous adaptations of DUNE, though, so you never know how these things are going to go.

FORREST GUMP writer Eric Roth turned in a 200 page script for this adaptation, which Jon Spaihts (PROMETHEUS, DOCTOR STRANGE, PASSENGERS, THE MUMMY) was then hired to whittle down to a more reasonable length. Villeneuve has also done some work on the script himself.

DUNE is being produced by Villeneuve, Mary Parent, and Cale Boyter, with Brian Herbert, Byron Merritt, Thomas Tull, and Kim Herbert executive producing and Kevin J. Anderson serving as a creative consultant.

Filming will be taking place in Budapest and Jordan.