We Have The First Look From Dune 3

One day after Timothée Chalamet watched Marty Supreme lose the Best Picture Oscar to someone else, he posted something on his Instagram Story that made everyone immediately forget the ceremony ever happened (and um, also the ballet roasts).

Today, Warner Bros. finally dropped a full slate on character posters on Dune: Part 3. The first photo of Timothée shows him as Paul Atreides as older, harder, and half-masked in a Fremen stillsuit – staring back at us in those spice-blue eyes ringed with wrinkles and red scarring. I guess this is what a holy war does to a man?

In addition to Timothee, Robert Pattinson is also seen for the first time as the new villain Scytale. We also get the first look of Zendaya as Chani, Jason Momoa as Hayt (a clone of the Duncan Idaho who died in 2021's Dune), Javier Bardem as Stilgar, Rebecca Ferguson as Lady Jessica, Florence Pugh as Irulan, Anya Taylor-Joy as Alia Atreides and Isaach De Bankolé as Farok.

Yes, we are getting a trailer this week, where its presumed to appear along with Project Hail Mary.

The Plot: What We Think We Know

The story picks up roughly 12 years after the end of Part Two, with Paul ruling as Emperor — married to Princess Irulan, his Fremen jihad well underway, and by the look of his face, none of it sitting particularly well with him. The scarring could be symbolic, cosmetic, or both. Either way, Villeneuve is telegraphing a clear shift in register: this is not a hero's homecoming.

The Book: Dune Messiah

Frank Herbert published Dune Messiah in 1969, and it is deliberately, pointedly the anti-Dune. Where the first book could be read as a classic hero's journey, Messiah is Herbert's corrective — a story about the horror of the very thing Dune built toward. Paul's holy war has killed billions. His prescient powers are a trap as much as a gift. Multiple factions — the Bene Tleilax, the Spacing Guild, the Bene Gesserit, even his own wife — are conspiring to bring him down. The Bene Tleilax in particular are an arcane, xenophobic sect of genetic manipulators who traffic in biological products — which is how Duncan Idaho comes back (as a ghola, a clone engineered to destabilise Paul). It is a darker, stranger, more philosophical book than the first, and arguably the braver adaptation choice.

The Cast

The ensemble here is stacked. Filming ran from July to November 2025, and the returning cast includes some characters getting their proper due after being shortchanged earlier in the series. Pugh's Irulan was barely present in Part Two despite being Paul's wife in the books — that changes here, given she's now at the centre of the conspiracy against him. Anya Taylor-Joy's Alia was only glimpsed in psychic visions; in Messiah, she's a full, terrifying presence. Léa Seydoux's Lady Margot also returns with significantly more to do.

The newcomer everyone's watching is Pattinson as Scytale, a Face Dancer — a Tleilaxu shapeshifter capable of mimicking anyone. Rebecca Ferguson, who wasn't meant to be in the film at all given Lady Jessica's absence from the source novel, was brought back by Villeneuve for a handful of scenes apparently.

Jason Momoa's real-life son, Nakoa-Wolf Momoa, plays Leto II Atreides, while Ida Brooke plays Ghanima — Paul and Chani's children.

The Release: 'Dunesday'

Dune: Part Three is set to hit theatres on December 18, 2026 — the same day as Avengers: Doomsday, a collision that the internet has very reasonably dubbed "Dunesday." Whether one blinks first remains to be seen, but after the franchise's combined $1.1 billion at the global box office, Warner Bros. doesn't look like it's moving.

Villeneuve's Farewell

Denis Villeneuve has been clear: this is the end of his Arrakis. He's also been characteristically precise about what this trilogy actually is. "It's important that people understand that for me, it was really a diptych," he told Vanity Fair in an interview earlier. "It was really a pair of movies that will be the adaptation of the first book... If I go back there, it's to do something that feels different and has its own identity."

Whether Villeneuve sticks closely to Herbert or carves his own ending, the images released today suggest he's not softening anything.

“Dune: Part Two” won two Oscars out of five nominations and grossed more than $714 million at the worldwide box office. Before “Dune 2” even released, Villeneuve had confirmed earlier that he was already working on the script for a potential third “Dune” movie.

And now it’s finally here. December cannot come soon enough!