Warner Bros.’ Dune recently revealed a first look at Timothée Chalamet in Denis Villeneuve’s epic reboot, so get ready for more. This project, of course, arrives decades after David Lynch famously had his name removed as director of the 1984 film, which sputtered into cinemas after Alejandro Jodorowsky’s 1970s take failed to materialize. Now, an expansive Vanity Fair feature drops even more looks at the cast. At this link, you can see Oscar Isaac, Zendaya, Jason Momoa, Josh Brolin, Rebecca Ferguson, Javier Bardem, and more as Villeneuve reveals that this movie will only explore the first half of Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel. So, we’ll see a Chapter Two at some point, with details to be further announced. That might not be 100% wonderful news for Chalamet, whose experience with the costuming aspects in this movie sounds not-so-enjoyable.
To capture the feel of the dust-dry planet of Arrakis, Villeneuve and crew shot outside Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. So, temperatures were above 100 degrees Fahrenheit at all times, and while we’ve got no sandworm details here, Chalamet’s costume talk sounds not unlike what we’ve heard from actors who play superheroes in MCU and DCEU movies. It sounds like those life-sustaining “stillsuits” from the book (which are designed to help preserve human moisture) worked the opposite way on set:
“The shooting temperature was sometimes 120 degrees. They put a cap on it out there, if it gets too hot. I forget what the exact number is, but you can’t keep working… “In a really grounded way, it was helpful to be in the stillsuits and to be at that level of exhaustion.”
Generally these days, costumes like the one Chalamet is describing come with cooling systems, although there’s no telling if that was the case on Dune. Even if that type of system existed here, though, it’s easy to imagine that shooting in the desert would be a grueling experience. And Chalamet’s role as protagonist was probably challenging enough, given that Paul Atreides is gifted with some supernatural touches, and he’s uprooting from a lush home planet to the bone-dry Arrakis, where House Harkonnen has no room for House Atreides moving in on the spice-mining market.
The Vanity Fair photos do reveal a gorgeously-shot set and cast, although it’s slightly disappointing that we’re not seeing Stellan Skarsgård as the monstrous Baron Vladimir. As Skarsgård told Uproxx last year, his role was heavy on the prosthetics. “It says in the script that he weighs 300 pounds, and I can’t gain that much weight and survive,” he gamely told us. “So they’re creating a body that they will have to glue on me. It will be prosthetics all over.” That’s gonna be something to behold, alright.
Dune will also star Dave Bautista, whose character is still under wraps, but hopefully, we’ll see him before the movie’s planned December 18 release.
(Via Vanity Fair)