Dune isn't done.
Legendary Entertainment announced on Tuesday that Denis Villeneuve's Dune, which adapts the first half of Frank Herbert's 1965 science-fiction epic, will get a sequel. Whether that would be the case had been an unanswered question throughout the film's release, which was delayed a year by the pandemic, and debuted both in cinemas and on HBO Max.
Warner Bros chairman Toby Emmerich said the studio will release Dune: Part II in October 2023. This time, the release is expected to be exclusively in cinemas. Arguing that Dune belonged to the big screen, Villeneuve had protested passionately when Warner Bros turned to hybrid releases for all of its 2021 films owing to the pandemic.
But Villeneuve had lobbied hard for a sequel to Dune, which he has said is easily the best movie he's made. It stars Timothee Chalamet, Oscar Isaac, Rebecca Ferguson, Josh Brolin, Jason Momoa and Zendaya. Some actors, like Zendaya, would potentially have a larger role in part two.
"This is only the beginning," said Villeneuve.
Over the weekend, Dune launched with a solid $40.1 million in ticket sales in US and Canadian cinemas. The 155-minute film that introduces itself as "Part 1" has thus far grossed $225 million worldwide.
The $165m production was shot in Hungary, Norway, Jordan and Abu Dhabi.
Much of the film is set in the dangerous planet Arrakis, known for its exclusive supply of Spice, the most essential and valuable commodity in the universe.
“When the producers were looking to the UAE, the brief wasn’t about a big desert landscape,” producer Robbie McAree of Epic Films, which provided production services for Dune, said in September.
In a behind-the-scenes video released by the Abu Dhabi Film Commission, Villeneuve revealed what drew him to Liwa as a central location for the film.
"What I found in Abu Dhabi is unmatchable. There’s a scale to the dunes and the desert in a variety of shapes that we thought was absolutely mesmerising," he said.
"There’s also some climatic conditions there that were perfect for us because of the proximity to the city, it's like a strange kind of haze in that air that I was looking for that matched totally with the look of the film.”
Scroll through the gallery below to see pictures from Dune's London premiere:
- Additional reporting by Associated Press
Who's who in Yemen conflict
Houthis: Iran-backed rebels who occupy Sanaa and run unrecognised government
Yemeni government: Exiled government in Aden led by eight-member Presidential Leadership Council
Southern Transitional Council: Faction in Yemeni government that seeks autonomy for the south
Habrish 'rebels': Tribal-backed forces feuding with STC over control of oil in government territory
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Start-up hopes to end Japan's love affair with cash
Across most of Asia, people pay for taxi rides, restaurant meals and merchandise with smartphone-readable barcodes — except in Japan, where cash still rules. Now, as the country’s biggest web companies race to dominate the payments market, one Tokyo-based startup says it has a fighting chance to win with its QR app.
Origami had a head start when it introduced a QR-code payment service in late 2015 and has since signed up fast-food chain KFC, Tokyo’s largest cab company Nihon Kotsu and convenience store operator Lawson. The company raised $66 million in September to expand nationwide and plans to more than double its staff of about 100 employees, says founder Yoshiki Yasui.
Origami is betting that stores, which until now relied on direct mail and email newsletters, will pay for the ability to reach customers on their smartphones. For example, a hair salon using Origami’s payment app would be able to send a message to past customers with a coupon for their next haircut.
Quick Response codes, the dotted squares that can be read by smartphone cameras, were invented in the 1990s by a unit of Toyota Motor to track automotive parts. But when the Japanese pioneered digital payments almost two decades ago with contactless cards for train fares, they chose the so-called near-field communications technology. The high cost of rolling out NFC payments, convenient ATMs and a culture where lost wallets are often returned have all been cited as reasons why cash remains king in the archipelago. In China, however, QR codes dominate.
Cashless payments, which includes credit cards, accounted for just 20 per cent of total consumer spending in Japan during 2016, compared with 60 per cent in China and 89 per cent in South Korea, according to a report by the Bank of Japan.
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