Villeneuve on a ‘sprint’ to finish ‘Dune’ on time
While Denis Villeneuve’s Dune is still set for a December 18 release this year, the director says it’s going to be no easy task to get the sci-fic epic adaptation ready on time.
“I was planning to go back and shoot some elements later because I wanted to readjust the movie. I needed time. At the time I didn’t know that it would be a pandemic… as we were about to go back to do those elements,” said Villeneuve in an interview while promoting the Shanghai International Film Festival. “The impact was that it crushed my schedule right now. It will be a sprint to finish the movie on time right now, because we were allowed to go back to shoot those elements in a few weeks…it meant also that I have to finish some elements of the movie, like VFX and the editing, being in Montreal as my crew stayed in Los Angeles.”
But fans should be happy to hear that Villeneuve has nothing but high praise for his lead star Timotee Chalamet, who plays the young Paul Atreides in Dune. “He is a phenomenal actor. He is someone that has a lot of depth, someone that is very mature for his age because Paul Atreides is an old soul in a young body, and Timothee has that… Also, he has features that remind me of old school Hollywood stars. He’s a real movie star. He has that insane charisma. Insane charisma. You put Timothee in front of a camera and it’s an explosion,” said the director.
The first trailer for Dune reportedly drops on August 12, alongside the re-release of Christopher Nolan’s Inception (August 13 in the UAE) in select theatres across the world.