Warner Bros. dropped the final Dune: Part Three trailer on Oct. 27. Paul is emperor, Chani and Scytale plot against him, and it opens Dec. 18.
Warner Bros. released the final trailer for Dune: Part Three on Tuesday, Oct. 27, and it leaves little doubt about where the story is headed: Paul Atreides is now the emperor, and people close to him are plotting to take him down. The movie opens in U.S. theaters and IMAX on Dec. 18, and tickets are already on sale, according to the studio.
What the trailer shows
The footage picks up nearly two decades after the end of Part Two. Per the studio's official synopsis, Paul is a ruthless ruler facing the consequences of his reign while old allies return and betrayal waits in the shadows. Timothée Chalamet's Paul is shown using the Voice on Irulan, played by Florence Pugh, according to Winter Is Coming's breakdown of the clip.
GamesRadar reports that Robert Pattinson's Scytale and Zendaya's Chani team up to try to assassinate Paul. Other returning names in the cast include Rebecca Ferguson, Jason Momoa, Anya Taylor-Joy, Javier Bardem and Josh Brolin. Denis Villeneuve directs from a script he wrote with Brian K. Vaughan, adapting Frank Herbert's novel Dune Messiah.
A different kind of finale
This will not play like a typical trilogy closer. SlashFilm notes that Villeneuve told Empire magazine he sees the film as a "sophisticated epilogue" to the first two movies, and that Chalamet called it "a standalone movie, in a sense." That is a useful expectation to set before December. It points to a darker, more intimate story rather than another sweeping war film.
What is not settled
A trailer is a sales pitch, and this one is cut to make the conflict look as big as possible. We have not seen how the plot resolves, and the studio has not said how long the movie runs. Readers of the book should also know that Winter Is Coming points out a major difference: in Dune Messiah, Chani is not part of the plot against Paul, while the trailer puts her at the center of it. That is a spoiler-level detail, so skip ahead if you want to go in fresh.
Our take
Studios usually save the biggest explosions for the last trailer. This one leans on character instead, with a marriage, a betrayal and a hero who may no longer deserve the title. We think that is the right call for Dune Messiah, a book that was written to complicate Paul's legend, and it should help the movie stand apart from the loud December crowd. The risk is obvious, though. Casual viewers who loved the sandworm spectacle of the earlier films may find this one quieter and bleaker than they expect.
For U.S. audiences the practical points are simple. The movie is set for Dec. 18, premium large-format screens such as IMAX are part of the plan, and presale tickets are open now through the usual ticketing sites.
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Picture credit: Warner Bros. Pictures / Legendary Pictures
