Warner Bros. just released the first full trailer for Dune: Part Three, and Denis Villeneuve is not easing anyone into this one. The footage debuted at a fan event in Los Angeles with Villeneuve and Timothée Chalamet on hand, simulcast to IMAX theaters in Chicago, Dallas, Toronto, Montreal, London, Berlin, Mexico City, and Abu Dhabi. The trailer will also play in front of IMAX 70mm screenings of The Odyssey, which is a not so subtle way of reminding audiences that Christopher Nolan is not the only director closing out 2026 with an epic.
The film adapts Dune Messiah, Frank Herbert’s 1969 sequel, and picks up 17 years after the events of Dune: Part Two. That is a shift from the book, which is set 12 years later, and it matters because Paul and Chani’s twins, Leto II and Ghanima, are now old enough to be played by Nakoa-Wolf Momoa and Ida Brooke. Yes, Jason Momoa’s son is playing Leto II. More on that in a second.
The Emperor Has a Statue Problem
The trailer makes it clear that Paul Atreides is no longer the underdog. He is the emperor of the known universe, the head of both church and state, and his jihad has burned entire worlds to ash. We see Paul walking through the aftermath of a battle, landscapes scorched by what looks like a stone burner, and Anya Taylor-Joy’s Alia stepping barefoot through the ashes of people who resisted his rule. There is also a massive statue of Muad’Dib towering over Arrakeen, in case anyone missed the point.
One detail that jumped out: the new Arrakeen Keep looks like an inverted version of the Emperor’s Hutment from the end of Part Two. Paul tore down a 10,000 year old empire and built something that looks suspiciously like it. Herbert wrote Messiah specifically to show readers that charismatic saviors become tyrants, and Villeneuve appears to be adapting that idea with zero hesitation. He has called Messiah his favorite book in the series and said this may be his most personal film.
Duncan Idaho Is Back, Sort Of
The emotional core of the trailer belongs to Jason Momoa. Duncan Idaho died saving Paul in the first film, and now he is back as Hayt, a ghola grown from Duncan’s remains by the Tleilaxu and delivered to Paul as a gift from Robert Pattinson’s Scytale. A gift from your enemies that wears your dead best friend’s face is exactly as much of a trap as it sounds.
The trailer’s best exchange has Hayt telling Paul he is beyond redemption. When Paul asks why he should refuse peace, Hayt answers that it is meant to destroy him. That is the entire plot of Dune Messiah compressed into two lines, and it tells you the conspiracy against Paul is not built on armies. It is built on grief.
The Sandworm Heist
The action centerpiece looks like a major expansion of a blink and you miss it plot point from the novel. In the book, the Spacing Guild schemes to steal a sandworm from Arrakis and start a new spice cycle on another planet. The trailer turns that into a full sequence: Hayt leaping from an ornithopter onto a worm’s back, drawing a sword, and giving Duncan’s old Atreides salute before cutting through Fremen. Chani, crysknife in hand, appears to be riding into the middle of it. Chani barely appears in the novel, so Zendaya’s expanded role continues the changes Part Two made to her arc, and book readers are going to have opinions.
New Blood Behind and In Front of the Camera
Pattinson looks genuinely unhinged as Scytale, the shapeshifting Tleilaxu Face Dancer leading the conspiracy. Isaach de Bankolé joins as Farok, a former Fedaykin commando disillusioned with Paul’s rule. Florence Pugh’s Irulan has an expanded role as Paul’s wife in name, while Rebecca Ferguson, Josh Brolin, Javier Bardem, and Charlotte Rampling all return.
Behind the camera, Villeneuve co-wrote the script with comic book legend Brian K. Vaughan, the writer behind Saga and Y: The Last Man, making this the first Dune film without Jon Spaihts on the screenplay. Linus Sandgren takes over cinematography from Greig Fraser, who is busy shooting The Batman Part II. Hans Zimmer and editor Joe Walker are back.
Dunesday Is Real
Dune: Part Three opens December 18, the same day as Avengers: Doomsday. Fans have already dubbed it Dunesday, and Warner Bros. drew first blood by locking up the US IMAX screens for opening weekend. Villeneuve versus the Russos on the same date is the biggest box office standoff in years, and based on this trailer, the sandworms are not blinking.
Dune: Part Three hits theaters and IMAX on December 18, 2026.
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