Dune (2021)
- To accurately portray their role in Dune, Timothée Chalamet spent weeks conducting hands-on research and rehearsing directly with director Denis Villeneuve.
- Despite initial studio skepticism, Dune went on to gross over $411,000,000 worldwide.
Dune is a 2021 American epic science fiction film directed by Denis Villeneuve, adapting the first half of Frank Herbert's groundbreaking 1965 novel. The film follows Paul Atreides, played by Timothée Chalamet, the young heir to the noble House Atreides, which has been granted stewardship of the desert planet Arrakis — the only source of "spice," the most valuable substance in the universe. When a devastating betrayal orchestrated by the rival House Harkonnen and the Emperor leaves Paul's family shattered, he must flee into the vast desert and find refuge among the Fremen, the indigenous people of Arrakis who may hold the key to his destiny.
Denis Villeneuve had pursued the adaptation for years, determined to create a version that honored Herbert's dense, philosophical source material — a novel previously considered unfilmable after David Lynch's troubled 1984 adaptation and Alejandro Jodorowsky's legendary unmade version. Villeneuve's approach emphasized practical environments and real desert locations in Jordan, Abu Dhabi, and Norway, supplemented by visual effects of unprecedented scale. Cinematographer Greig Fraser won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography for his luminous, sand-hazed imagery.
Hans Zimmer's score, which he created using invented instruments and unconventional vocal techniques, won the Academy Award for Best Sound and became one of the composer's most acclaimed works. The film earned $407 million worldwide despite a simultaneous HBO Max streaming release, and its critical and commercial success greenlit the second part, which Villeneuve had always planned as essential to completing the story. Dune won six Academy Awards from ten nominations, the most of any film that year.
