Home in Canada, director Denis Villeneuve says “Dune: Part Two” is a love story first

By Morgan Lowrie, The Canadian Press on February 29, 2024.

MONTREAL – Quebec director Denis Villeneuve says he was feeling the love from his family and friends as he returned to Montreal for the Canadian premiere of “Dune: Part Two.”

And that’s fitting because Villeneuve says that despite the film’s big action sequences and themes of war, his latest adaptation of Frank Herbert’s beloved sci-fi epic is above all a love story.

Villeneuve says in an interview that filming “Dune” involved grueling shoots in the scorching desert that included building some 30 kilometres of temporary roads to get crews and equipment to sites in Jordan.

But he says it was important to him to do justice to the book’s desert landscapes, as well as the love story that bloomed between Timothée Chalamet’s Paul Atreides and Zendaya’s Chani – which he described as the heart of the movie.

The film is the follow up to 2021’s “Dune: Part One,” and adds actors including Austin Butler, Christopher Walken and Florence Pugh to the already big-name ensemble.

“Dune: Part Two” opens in theatres across Canada on Friday.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 29, 2024.

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