Dune: Half Two‘s explosive ending has already set the stage for the following step in Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) and Chani’s (Zendaya) story. That may solely imply one factor: Dune Messiah.

Whereas Warner Bros. has but to green-light a movie primarily based on Frank Herbert’s second Dune novel, Dune: Half Two‘s sturdy field workplace displaying and reception from critics and basic audiences alike may result in a path for a Dune Messiah adaptation. The cogs are already in movement: Director Denis Villeneuve informed The Hollywood Reporter that he’s at the moment within the writing course of. In an interview with Mashable, Dune: Half Two co-writer Jon Spaihts confirmed that Villeneuve was engaged on the screenplay and that the 2 have had discussions in regards to the movie. Though Spaihts himself has but to work on a Messiah script in any official capability, he is greater than prepared to leap in.

“The thrilling factor about Messiah is a really inevitable and super time leap,” Spaihts informed Mashable. The ebook picks up years after Paul takes over the Imperium. By this level, the jihad in his title has claimed billions of lives. And as Spaihts places it, “Heavy is the top that wears the crown.”

Messiah‘s time leap provides us the possibility to see a model of Paul who’s grown additional into his prescience, in addition to extra time with characters we did not see a lot of in Dune: Half Two, corresponding to a now-grown Alia Atreides (Anya Taylor-Pleasure) and Princess Irulan (Florence Pugh). It additionally continues to emphasise Herbert’s cautionary tales about chief figures.

“The operate of Dune Messiah within the Dune canon is in some methods a repudiation of Dune,” Spaihts defined. Sure, Herbert’s misgivings about messianic figures are current in Dune, however the ending — together with Paul’s complete rout of the Imperium — could go away room for heroic interpretations of Paul.

“I believe Frank Herbert got here away from [Dune] troubled just a little bit that maybe he had put an excessive amount of of an actual crown on his savior he was making an attempt to warn folks about,” Spaihts continued. “So, Dune Messiah actually is his reply to himself and his reply to Dune. It is just like the second act of Into the Woods the place the whole lot falls aside, and the shadows of the whole lot reveal themselves.”

With its bleak themes and cliffhanger ending, it is clear Dune: Half Two is gearing up for Dune Messiah — maybe much more emphatically than the top of Herbert’s authentic Dune. “The beautiful factor is that the best way Denis has formed the top of Dune: Half Two has set the desk even higher than the novel does for the approaching machinations of Dune Messiah, the place we’ll see Chani and Princess Irulan clashing over the future of the Atreides household,” stated Spaihts.

These clashes throughout the Atreides household, in addition to a Bene Gesserit conspiracy to rid the Imperium of Paul, mark a tonal shift from the struggle over Arrakis — one which Spaihts cannot wait to sort out.

“I am very a lot excited to see that rather more murky and nuanced political battle,” Spaihts stated. “The panorama of battle could be very completely different; it is rather more palace intrigue in Dune Messiah than it’s the open warfare of Dune: Half Two. So it is going to inevitably unfold as a really completely different movie, with new flavors and new notes being performed. And I believe that is very thrilling.”

Dune: Half Two is now in theaters.