Denis Villeneuve’s science fiction movie masterpiece, Dune, has been wowing audiences around the world. It’s been a huge commercial and critical success and convinced a new generation of readers to pick up the work of Frank Herbert and dig into the sand of the source material.
The only complaint we’ve seen about the film is the adventure movie’s ending. After a lot of build-up, the film ends on quite a flat note with Paul and his mother joining the Fremen with the promise they’ll have their revenge on the monstrous House Harkonnen. The fact Villeneuve chose to split the film into two parts came as a surprise to some viewers who were left a bit confused by the ending.
Now, though, Villeneuve told Empire he considered ending the film a bit later in the book. “My first intuition was to break [with Paul joining the Fremen]. And then we tried also to break it a bit later. Because in the book, there’s a natural moment – there’s like a two-year gap or something like that.”
Villeneuve admitted, though, that it didn’t really work. The problem was that after two and a half hours of the film, the time skip served as a natural break and continuing beyond that felt like “starting a new story”.
“It was feeling like the beginning of a new chapter, which felt very heavy at the end,” he continued. “I’m 100% positively convinced that we stuck at the right moment, where we finally feel that Paul has [gone] from being a boy to an adult, and having all this arc of this first part completed.”
If you’re desperate to know how Dune: Part 2 will end then, you’ve got a long wait. Villeneuve hasn’t started filming the second part yet, and he’s unlikely to begin until summer 2022. Still, you could always read the book?
Failing that, check out our guide on Dune 2, and once you’ve quenched your thirst, be sure to read our list of the best sci-fi series.