The second trailer lands for Dune: Part Three, and it’s filled with beautifully-framed, unsettling imagery. Update: Good LORD. Just look at this: Earlier… 18th March 2026: Now this is how you make a teaser trailer. Cinema’s moodiest space opera is back, with Dune: Part Three set to follow Paul Atreides’ continued descent into power-crazed mania. ... Dune: Part Three | Intense second trailer arrives
The second trailer lands for Dune: Part Three, and it’s filled with beautifully-framed, unsettling imagery.
Update: Good LORD. Just look at this:
Earlier…
18th March 2026: Now this is how you make a teaser trailer. Cinema’s moodiest space opera is back, with Dune: Part Three set to follow Paul Atreides’ continued descent into power-crazed mania.
Cut to Hans Zimmer’s chanting, bellowing score, its 150-ish seconds are packed with the kind of images we’d expect from director Denis Villeneuve. I mean, come on, just look at this:
Perfection.
In a launch event covered by The Hollywood Reporter, Villeneuve describes his third and final chapter in the Dune trilogy as being “very different” from the previous two:
“It’s a very different movie than the first ones. It’s a good idea to come back to those worlds, not by nostalgia, but by urgency,” he said. “If the first movie was contemplation, a boy exploring a new world, and the second one is a war movie, this one is a thriller. It is action-packed and tense. More muscular.”
It’s once again about the battle for the control of the planet Arrakis, but with Atreides now its supreme ruler, there’s the growing threat of a violent uprising.
“We see Paul dealing with the consequences of having too much power,” Villeneuve said, adding that “the heartbeat of the film is still the relationship between Paul and Chani [again played by Zendaya].”
Dune: Part Three is one of our most anticipated releases of the year. But there’s the faint wonder whether the franchise’s events, always steeped in real-world history, will hit a little too close to home. A power-mad leader and an endless, bloody war for natural resources? No, that doesn’t remind us of anything at all. It’s just a bit of fun.
Dune: Part Three is in UK cinemas from the 18th December 2026.
Previously…
12th November 2025: Filming has wrapped on Dune: Part Three, director Denis Villeneuve’s grand sci-fi sequel.
Continuing the story of Paul Atreides (Timothee Chalamet), it’s said to be based on Frank Herbert’s novel Dune Messiah, but may also introduce elements of the later book, Children Of Dune. A Chalamet fan account has shared a photo from what appears to be a wrap party, with a large screen thanking an “amazing cast and crew”.
Dune: Part Three’s filming locations have included Budapest’s Origo Film Studios, Hungary, and the Liwa Desert in Abu Dhabi, with the shoot starting in July. With shooting now complete, there’s now just over a year of post-production – including what will be a heck of a lot of VFX work – ahead of its release on the 18th December 2026.
It was previously announced that parts of the film have been shot with IMAX cameras; since then, it’s emerged (via World Of Reel) that the non-IMAX sections have been captured on Kodak 65mm celluloid – a change from the digital photography of the previous two movies.
Earlier…
Update 9th July 2025: As Denis Villeneuve and his team gear up to turn the Dune film saga into a trilogy, a couple of news snippets emerge from the production.
First, the title. For many months, it’s been said that the next (and Villeneuve’s final) chapter will be called Dune Messiah, echoing the title of author Frank Herbert’s second book in the series. Instead, Variety reports that the film will be called Dune: Part Three.
It’s a less evocative title, but a logical one. It makes its aim of directly continuing Paul Atreides’ story more plain, and means the Blu-ray will look more uniform sitting next to the other two films on our shelves. There might also be a bit of expectation management here; Dune Messiah is a decidedly trippy novel in places, and it may be that he and co-writer Jon Spaihts will side-step some of that weirdness in their adaptation.
In other Dune: Part Three news, it sounds as though IMAX boss Richard Gelfond’s earlier claims were overstated. He went on TV and said that Villeneuve is “filming the whole thing” with IMAX cameras. According to Variety’s sources, that isn’t true – only parts of it will be shot in the embiggened format, in much the same way that key sequences in Dune parts one and two were.
Filming on Dune: Part Three got underway on the 7th July in Budapest, with Timothee Chalamet, Zendaya, Florence Pugh and Jason Momoa among the stars reprising their roles. Its release date is currently set for the 18th December 2026.
Our original story follows…
Original story 8th July 2025: If reports are correct, director Denis Villeneuve is currently filming his sci-fi sequel Dune Messiah, with its release set for December 2026.
Meanwhile, if recent comments from IMAX CEO Richard Gelfond are accurate, then the film could look quite different from the previous two chapters, released in 2021 and 2024.
Speaking on the Lord Business-approved CNBC show Squawk On The Street (see below) Gelfond talked about the success of his large-format presentation business, and the subject of Denis Villeneuve came up.
“He’s making the next Dune with IMAX cameras,” Gelfond said. “He’s filming the whole thing.”
The previous Dune movies had some spectacular IMAX sequences, but they weren’t presented entirely in IMAX’s tall aspect ratio, nor were they shot on film. Instead, they used IMAX-approved digital cameras, with the footage then printed onto film to add a layer of grain. (Because most cinemas are digital these days, the film then had to be scanned into a computer again. It was quite a process.)
Gelfond appears to be hinting that Villeneuve and his team will be shot natively on film using IMAX’s 70mm cameras – something Christopher Nolan is currently doing on his current project, The Odyssey.
Speaking at Cannes in May, Gelfond revealed that his company had developed a new generation of lighter, quieter IMAX cameras following a conversation with Nolan – and the tech proved to be so successful that the filmmaker decided to use it exclusively on his currently-in-production mythological epic.
Is Villeneuve adopting the same approach for Dune Messiah? Gizmondo contacted IMAX for comment on what Gelfond said, and the company confirmed that the director will “shoot on Messiah with IMAX cameras” but couldn’t say for definite whether it would be entirely on film.
Gelfond sounds hopeful that Villeneuve will continue to use his company’s format in the future, however, including the filmmaker’s next project: James Bond.
“We haven’t started talking yet, but I’m praying that’s the case with Bond,” he said.
More on Dune Messiah – and its potential use of massive film stock – as it comes in.
