Dune Reboot: First Look At Timothée Chalamet Confirms Something Important

In Dune, Denis Villeneuve's two-part adaptation of Frank Herbert's beloved science fiction epic, star Timothée Chalamet plays the story's protagonist, Paul Atreides, a young otherworldly royal who must leave his life behind to migrate to a dangerous mining planet and start a new adventure. Vanity Fair has an exclusive first look at Chalamet's Paul on his home planet of Caladan, wandering along a lonely-looking beach.

Beyond the first glimpse at Chalamet's character in the film, the most important detail to come out of Vanity Fair's story is that Dune is still set to arrive in theaters on December 18, 2020. In the wake of COVID-19, plenty of films have delayed their theatrical releases – from the new Bond film No Time to Die to the ninth Fast & Furious film to Marvel's entire Phase 4 slate. However, Villeneuve, as of this writing, insists that they're doing everything they can to release Dune as planned.

Legendary Pictures/Warner Bros. (via Vanity Fair)

"Dune was made by people from all over the world. Many of these people are like family to me, and they're very much in my thoughts. I'm so proud to showcase their hard work," the director told Vanity Fair. "I look forward to a time when we can all get together again as Dune was made to be seen on the big screen."

Like in the 1965 novel and the 1984 film adaptation directed by David Lynch, 2020's Dune sees Paul Atreides and his family set to take over Arrakis, a run-down desert of a planet. In doing so, though, they face opposition from House Harkonnen, who are also trying to take control of Arrakis. Aiming to defend his family's new property alongside his parents, Duke Leto (Oscar Isaac) and Lady Jessica Atreides (Rebecca Ferguson), Paul works under military veteran Gurney Halleck (Josh Brolin) to learn how to best fight against his family's rivals. Meanwhile, the planet isn't empty — an indigenous race called the Slingers, led by Stilgar (Javier Bardem), are ready to rise up against their new colonizers. Villeneuve once called the new Dune movie "Star Wars for adults," and based on what we know about the film, that's an apt description.

As Chalamet told Vanity Fair, "The immediately appealing thing about Paul was the fact that in a story of such detail and scale and world-building, the protagonist is on an anti-hero's-journey of sorts. He thinks he's going to be sort of a young general studying his father and his leadership of a fighting force before he comes of age, hopefully a decade later, or something like that."

More details about Dune are due to arrive soon, but in the meantime, it's extremely exciting to hear that Villeneuve's newest sci-fi outing and the latest retelling of this classic story is still set to arrive in theaters as planned on December 18.