Yes, I suppose that’s right. Still… bummer. For more:
Delaying is understandable, but until October? Why not Labor Day? (4th of July may be too soon virus wise)
Brian
Hmm… potential vicious circle: content won’t be made available until mass audiences can again make it to theaters, but meanwhile the theater have nothing to keep them going, and we may not be able to have mass audiences for years, plural. So the risk is that a point may come when there may not be enough surviving screens with enough seats to provide a profitable return vis-a-vis sunk cost on many of the pending Big Pictures.
The industry may have to redefine what they call “successful” especially for the productions where the cost has been already incurred. And then what will be the incentive to put the same kind of money into Dune 2.
I think they want to avoid delaying it multiple times to build excitement for the new date, so they picked one they were confident with.
And, presumably, if things improve dramatically next year, they can move the date up again.
This thread prompted me to go back and re-read Dune again. Thirty-odd years makes a difference; I didn’t find it as intimidatingly complex as I remember it. And my view of some characters was more influenced by the Lynch film than I had realized; for example, Baron Harkonnen was not nearly as depraved, perverted, and disgusting as he was portrayed in the movie. He was a villain and amoral, of course, but he wasn’t stupid, and he wasn’t a gross hedonist; he was attempting to advance and enrich his house, just as Duke Leto was for the Atreides.
Its release date is October 1 of next year, with a simultaneous release on HBO Max. The article includes a whole host of movies that are getting simultaneous releases with theatrical and HBO.
ETA: I missed that there was a whole HBO max thread, sorry about that.
Interesting that they went straight from Matrix 1 to 4 
Brian
Bumped.
Actually I like that approach. Spoilering just in case, though it seems like it will be impossible to avoid this info between now and October.
Usually this kind of thing feels like a money grab, but in the case of Dune the story probably needs that extra breathing room. The linked article discusses where the break point will be between the two movies. Alia’s birth feels like the right spot.
This will allow the first movie to focus on the conflict between the Atreides and Harkonnen houses, the politics around Arrakis and fleshing out the power structures of the Guild, Bene Gesserit and the Imperium. I actually think stretching out the initial transfer of power on Dune and the ensuring battle will increase the mass appeal of the film. Then the second film can be where the weirdness of the Spice, the Fremen and the Kwisatz Haderach become the focus.
Was the emperor elderly during the time period of the first novel? I pictured him as someone younger, maybe in his 40s.
I’ll just point out that The Mandalorian coped with having a lead character that, aside from a very few, very short scenes, spent two seasons completely covered head to toe in armor and proved popular.
They also got some mileage out of both Jawas and Tusken Raiders, which also were completely covered.
It can be done.
Granted, probably not every actor could pull it off.
I agree - can they get the damn stillsuits right this time?
What?
It’s not like they didn’t have the time. Budget concerns or just a hope to milk more money from it by doing a second film I am guessing.
Maddening.
I’m not sure why this is being treated as a surprise - it’s been known since early last year that Dune was going to be a two-parter. It’s even been talked about in this thread already.
I thought the Emperor was actually much older than he looked due to ingesting the spice.
That’s quite a promotion from Gurney Halleck to Emperor of the Known Universe.
Yes, as you already noted upthread.
I think the movie will be amazing and I just can’t wait to see it.
They have an amazing cast, an amazing director and a pretty big budget.
The only problem I see is that people don’t watch a lot of SF movies in theaters as they used to. Every big SF movie in the last 10 and more years if not bombed, wasn’t financially good enough, except Star Wars (even they had problems, and I am not counting Superhero movies).
Welcome, Hrvojeos! I tend to agree with you. Hope this Dune is both (a) really good and (b) a blockbuster hit, so they’ll actually make the second half.
Indeed. The fact that the film’s a two-parter is mentioned in the Vanity Fair article linked in the OP.
Yeah, my only concern is that Villeneuve’s films tend to be awesome critical hits that do just sort of ok at the box office. So Dune might not hit the numbers needed to justify the second half.