Timothée Chalamet 'Spoils' Return Of Dead Character In Dune 3 (If It Ever Happens)

After multiple delays, Denis Villeneuve's "Dune: Part Two" will finally premiere in theaters on March 1, 2024. The film was initially pushed back from October 2023 to November early on in its production. Then, during the SAG-AFTRA strike, Warner Bros. shifted the release to March, initially scheduling its release for the 15th before moving it up to the first of the month.

Adding more chaos to the "Dune: Part Two" pre-release news cycle is none other than its lead, Timothée Chalamet. In an interview with MTV, otherwise intended to promote Chalamet's work on "Wonka," host Josh Horowitz concludes with some "Dune" talk, running down some of the changes the second film will make to its predecessor's cast. Florence Pugh, he notes, will debut in "Dune: Part Two," and not returning, Horowitz believes, is Jason Momoa, whose character Duncan Idaho dies in the first "Dune" movie.

"Momoa will be back," Chalamet says, interrupting and surprising Horowitz. Chalamet then clarifies that Duncan Idaho returns in the second Dune novel, titled "Dune Messiah." This means that if there's ever a third Dune movie — and presuming it faithfully follows the plot of the book — Momoa should reprise his "Dune" role.

"It's so weird because they're so secretive about the script," Chalamet says, defending himself after Horowitz accuses him of inadvertently sharing a spoiler. "Well, [the books] have been out there for 70 years!"

A third Dune movie is not yet a sure thing and may well depend on "Dune: Part Two" amassing a sizable enough profit to convince Warner Bros. that the franchise should continue. But a recent report indicates that this may not be the case; according to author Jeff Sneider's newsletter, The InSneider, Warner Bros. has quietly greenlit a third Dune film and tentatively scheduled its release for 2027.

This information tracks with the fact that, in early December, Denis Villeneuve addressed his plans for a threequel during a press conference in South Korea. During the event, available publicly on Youtube, the director shared that he's not just working on a screenplay for the project he'll be working on after "Dune," but that the script for a third chapter in the franchise script is nearly complete.

Presumably, Villeneuve would not have spent the amount of time it takes to practically finish a feature film screenplay if he wasn't at least somewhat confident Warner Bros. was interested in more "Dune." Fans of Jason Momoa's Duncan Idaho, then, can rest assured that the prospect of his return at this point seems fairly likely.