With Dune: Part One and Dune: Part Two, director Denis Villeneuve took one Frank Herbert novel and turned it into two films. But, with the upcoming movie Dune Messiah, he might be doing the opposite: cramming two books into one movie.
A new casting rumor suggests that maybe, just maybe, Dune 3 will not just adapt the second Herbert Dune novel, but also draw upon aspects of the third book, the 1976 bestseller, Children of Dune. If remotely true, Dune Messiah will do something very similar to what the 2003 SyFy Channel adaptations did. Plus, because of what we saw in Dune: Part Two, there’s a precedent for this kind of thing.
According to unsubstantiated rumors and leaks, Nakoa-Wolf Momoa and Ida Brooke have been cast as Leto II and Ghanima Atreides, respectively. This rumor originated on Nexus Point News, and was later picked up by ComicBookMovie before going viral. Yes, Nakoa-Wolf Momoa is the child of Jason Momoa, but if the casting is true, he’d be playing Paul and Chani’s son, destined to become the long-lived, half-worm, God Emperor of Dune.
Relevantly, Nakoa-Wolf Momoa is 16 years old, and Ida Brooke appears to be in her late teens or early twenties. Silo fans probably recognize Brooke from her appearances in flashbacks as a younger version of Shirley (Remmie Milner). And so, Brooke’s background with a big sci-fi property, combined with a passing resemblance to Zendaya, makes this aspect of the rumor seem somewhat credible.
So, assuming that young Momoa and Brooke are both really playing Leto II and Ghanima in Dune 3, there’s just one problem: Those characters are literal newborns at the end of Dune Messiah. So if they appear as teenagers or young adults in Dune 3, there’s really only two options. First, and most likely, these characters will appear in a kind of future vision: Paul will see his children in the future, which will reveal a larger destiny for the Atreides family line.
The second option is a bit wilder: That the movie version of Dune Messiah will actually adapt aspects of Children of Dune, a book in which Leto II, Ghanima, and Paul’s sister, Alia Atreides, are the main characters. Of the two options, this is absolutely the more fulfilling hypothetical outcome. We already know Anya Taylor-Joy will play Alia in Dune 3, because her existence was teased in a future vision in Dune: Part Two. But if Villeneuve is strictly adapting Messiah, then Taylor-Joy will have to be playing a teenager in that movie. (Recall, Alia wasn’t even born yet in the new, revised timeline of Dune: Part Two, a major change from the novel.)
If Villeneuve decides to blend the storylines of Messiah and Children, then suddenly it makes sense for Taylor-Joy to be older, and to have fully-grown versions of Leto II and Ghanima as central characters. Because Paul also appears in Children of Dune, this approach would truly conclude his story and allow for more closure for audiences who haven’t read the books. The ending Messiah finds Paul walking into the desert alone after Chani succumbs to a fatal childbirth. It's a small, sad ending, and almost like a coda to the original Dune.
But Children of Dune goes much bigger, and has an ending which sets up the centuries-spanning events of the next three books. It’s also a book in which Alia is possessed by the living memory of the Baron Harkonnen, which would mean we’d get Stellan Skarsgård living inside of Taylor-Joy’s mind, and getting her to do evil on Arrakis. Who doesn’t want to see that? Again, in 2003, this was the exact approach of the miniseries Children of Dune: to combine the stories of Messiah and Children into one, epic tale.
Right now, we should take all casting rumors about Dune Messiah with several grains of spicy sand, but if this detail does prove to be true, it could mean Dune 3 might end up being the best and biggest Dune of them all.
