According to Deadline, Timothée Chalamet is in “final talks” to star in Denis Villeneuve’s new Dune movie. He’ll reportedly be playing Paul Atreides, the character Kyle MachLachlan played in David Lynch’s 1984 adaptation and the main hero of the story. Like Lynch’s version, Villeneuve’s Dune will be based on the 1965 Frank Herbert novel of the same name, though it’ll hopefully turn out better than that one did. Villeneuve hasn’t shared many details on exactly what he’s planning, but he has said that he wants to make two Dune movies, “maybe more,” and that it’ll be like “Star Wars for adults.”
That’s a bold claim, especially since The Last Jedi tried to hard to break everything that Star Wars fans once held sacred, but Dune is the kind of fantastical sci-fi story that lends itself to Star Wars comparisons. Of course, it’s also a very big and very beloved epic that has vexed filmmakers for decades, so any attempt at a Dune adaptation requires a certain amount of boldness anyway, so hopefully Chalamet and Villeneuve can finally make this work.