Dune Part 2 reportedly hired superstar actor Christopher Walken to play the film's key villain.
According to multiple outlets, including Deadline, Variety and The Hollywood Reporter, Walken has been cast as Emperor Shaddam IV in the sequel to Denis Villeneuve's sci-fi extravaganza.
Walken, who recently starred in Apple TV Plus's critically acclaimed sci-fi television series Severance and Prime Video's The Outlaws, adds serious star power to an already stacked cast.
The iconic actor will star alongside Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Javier Bardem and Josh Brolin in the follow-up film. Meanwhile, Marvel star Florence Pugh will play one of the Walken emperor's daughters, Princess Irulan, alongside Elvis actor Austin Butler and Stellan Skarsgård, who play the duo, respectively, the villainous Feyd-Rautha. Harkonnen and Baron Vladimir Harkonnen.
Principal photography is scheduled to begin in July, with Dune Part 2 currently slated for an October 2023 release. With production expected to begin in the coming months, it's no surprise that Villeneuve and casting director Francine Maisler are reuniting. . actors for the main roles in the film.
Walken's casting in Dune Part 2 seems somewhat prescient now. The award-winning actor starred in the video for Fatboy Slim's 2001 song Weapon of Choice, featuring Walken dancing in an abandoned hotel lobby. At one point, the song's lyrics say, "Walk without a beat and you won't attract the worm," an obvious reference to the gigantic sandworms that inhabit the planet Arrakis in Dune. More than two decades later, hopefully we'll see Walken's Emperor Shaddam IV fully embody those words. Well, maybe in a deleted scene, anyway.
Analysis: Who is Emperor Shaddam IV?
Major spoilers for the first Dune film follow, along with elements from the novel on which it is based.
For the uninitiated, Emperor Shaddam IV is the ruler of House Corrino and the known universe in Frank Hebert's iconic science fiction novel. Emperor 81 of the Galactic Empire is the puppet master of much of what goes on in the known universe, regularly pulling the political strings between the many Houses, including the Atreides and Harkonnen families.
Emperor Shaddam IV was conspicuously absent from the first Dune movie. However, die-hard Dune fans, as well as movie buffs, will know that Emperor Shaddam IV is joining forces with House Harkonnen in an attempt to defeat House Atreides; the former sees the latter as a major threat to his dominance of the known universe. The two Houses combine their military forces to attack House Atreides on Arrakis, the universe's spice mining headquarters, after Emperor Shaddam summons House Atreides to take over production of the life substance. .
Of course, we all know that Paul Atreides of Chalament, along with his mother, Lady Jessica, survived the Corrino/Harkonnen attack on House Atreides. Expect the pair, along with the Fremen and all the other survivors (cough, cough, Brolin's Gurney Halleck), to lead the fight against Shaddam IV in the sequel, then.
Dune Part 2 is likely to follow the story outlined in Herbert's seminal works, so we already know the fate of Emperor Shaddam IV. However, we won't spoil it for you here if you haven't read the book.
For more content based on Dune, check out our interview with director Denis Villeneuve on the making of Dune Part 1. Also, read our conversation with the film's lead creative team to find out how they brought Arrakis to life.
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