{"id":547263,"date":"2026-03-18T00:27:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T00:27:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/547263\/"},"modified":"2026-03-18T00:27:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T00:27:15","slug":"denis-villeneuve-says-upcoming-film-starring-robert-pattinson-as-scytale-will-be-his-most-personal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/547263\/","title":{"rendered":"Denis Villeneuve says upcoming film starring Robert Pattinson as Scytale will be his most personal"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Michael<\/p>\n

March 18, 2026 \u2014 7:41am<\/p>\n

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Robert Pattinson, the star of The Batman and the Twilight films, is poised to de-throne Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet\u2019s Dune universe anti-hero Paul Atreides in the third and final chapter of director Denis Villeneuve\u2019s film cycle based on the iconic novels of Frank Herbert.<\/p>\n

Pattinson joined his Dune: Part Three co-stars Zendaya, Anya Taylor-Joy, Javier Bardem, and Villeneuve at an invitation-only screening of the film\u2019s new trailer in Los Angeles yesterday. The trailer, which includes our first look at Pattinson in character, drops online today.<\/p>\n

\"RobertRobert Pattinson, Zendaya, Denis Villeneuve, Anya Taylor-Joy and Javier Bardem at the Dune: Part Three trailer screening.Warner Bros Pictures<\/p>\n

In the new film, Pattinson will play Scytale, a rival to Atreides who plots to dethrone him. In the books, Scytale is a hermaphrodite shape-shifter from the xenophobic and isolationist Tleilaxu sect.<\/p>\n

\u201cI absolutely adored these movies,\u201d Pattinson said. \u201cIt\u2019s such a towering achievement by the cast, so incredible. I just think everybody wants to work with Denis. He\u2019s a master, when you see the scope and scale and ambition of these movies on set. You get why they feel like this on the screen. It\u2019s an extraordinary and amazing experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

The new Dune film picks up the story 17 years after the last ended. \u201cIt\u2019s a very different movie,\u201d Villeneuve said. \u201cI said to myself, it\u2019s a good idea to come back to this world, not [driven] by nostalgia but by urgency and to go there with a critical eye, and the idea [that we would] not be self-indulgent. It will be a different tone, a different rhythm, a different pace.\u201d<\/p>\n

Villeneuve described the first two films, in order, as \u201ca contemplation, a boy exploring a new world, and the second one, a war movie\u201d, and the third chapter as \u201cmore action-packed, more dense, more muscular than the two others.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Much of the new film is shot on old-school 65mm film, a wide high-resolution film with a frame nearly 3.5 times larger than standard 35mm film. It was an unusual decision in the era of digital filmmaking, though Villeneuve kept the visuals of the desert planet Arrakis on the high-resolution digital 1.90:1 widescreen IMAX format.<\/p>\n

\u201cI kept the desert in digital because I like the brutality of the digital IMAX,\u201d Villeneuve said. \u201cSo the movie is really meant to be an IMAX experience, and to be seen on the biggest screen possible. When you see the result on screen it\u2019s quite unmatchable.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AA newly-released poster for Dune: Part Three revealing Robert Pattinson as Scytale.Warner Bros Pictures<\/p>\n

The visual departure of the new film is intended to reflect the change which has come to Arrakis and its place in the universe. Linus Sandgren (La La Land, Saltburn, Wuthering Heights) is the cinematographer on the new film, replacing Australian Oscar-winner Greig Fraser, who shot the first two.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe climate is different, Arrakis is still a desert planet, but there are differences, new planets, and I wanted to approach this with a new pair of eyes,\u201d Villeneuve said.<\/p>\n

Herbert\u2019s sprawling literary universe has become one of the most influential literary masterpieces of all time, its creative tendrils touching everything from Star Wars, Game of Thrones and the Warhammer 40,000 game, to Iron Maiden, Alien and singer and songwriter Grimes.<\/p>\n

The book series, set on Arrakis, and the battle between noble houses over control of its valuable \u201cspice\u201d, was unfurled in six original novels, published between 1965 and 1985. Villeneuve\u2019s first two films were based on the original tome, Dune. The upcoming Dune: Part Three is based on the 1969 book, Dune Messiah.<\/p>\n

Villeneuve describes Dune Messiah as \u201cprobably my favourite book of the series. It\u2019s a very dark book, beautiful book. And I will say this, [Dune; Part Three] is my one of my most personal films, if not my most personal film, so it\u2019s a film that is very close to me and, and very contemporary.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 58-year-old Quebecois filmmaker says he felt a deep connection to fragile relationship of the film\u2019s two lead characters: Atreides, the scion of House Atreides, and Chani (Zendaya), a fierce Fremen warrior and, eventually, Atreides\u2019 consort.<\/p>\n

\"Timoth\u00e9eTimoth\u00e9e Chalamet and Rebecca Ferguson in a scene from Dune.Warner Bros Pictures<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re struggling, their relationship, the burden and incredible pressure from the world around them,\u201d Villeneuve said. \u201cThere\u2019s something about the way their love, their time, the way they are, the way their relationship evolved, that study on the relationship of both characters, that is very personal to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Villeneuve had always intended to turn Dune Messiah into a third film, and the Dune cycle into a film trilogy, but had not intended to produce the third film so quickly after the first two. \u201cAs a filmmaker, when you make a series of movies like this, you are in a relationship with the audience [and] I felt a responsibility to finish the story,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Editor’s pick\"Autumn<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI said to my crew, I\u2019m taking a break, that\u2019s it, but I kept waking up in the middle of the night, and the image of Dune: Part Three, inspired by Dune Messiah, kept coming back. And I said, all right let\u2019s do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Villeneuve added that the film was an affirmation to the power of cinema. \u201cIt is an art form that is meant to make you travel, make you experience things that you will not [while] living a regular life, and to make you feel things that will something new in your life,\u201d Villeneuve said.<\/p>\n

\u201c[German filmmaker] Wim Wenders said that a great film is a film that that makes you want to kick a ball when you get out of the theatre; it\u2019s the idea that cinema is linked with life,\u201d Villeneuve said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs human beings, it\u2019s important to share experiences, our lives right now, we are in our little bubbles all around the world, and I think that the [movie] theatre, like some sport events or concert, bring us together. There\u2019s something beautifully, beautiful and human about that.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"MichaelMichael Idato<\/a> is the culture editor-at-large of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via X<\/a> or email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"March 18, 2026 \u2014 7:41am Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":547264,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[64,63,134,344],"class_list":["post-547263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-entertainment","tag-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=547263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547263\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/547264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=547263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=547263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=547263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}