Dune: Part Two arrives on Max on May 21st.
Dune: Part Two is flowing onto Max sooner than expected. On Tuesday, Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures announced that Dune: Part Two will make its streaming debut on Max on Tuesday, May 21st. Dune: Part Two completes director Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s iconic 1965 sci-fi novel Dune, which Villeneuve began in 2021’s Dune. Dune: Part Two stars Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Josh Brolin, Austin Butler, Florence Pugh, Dave Bautista, Christopher Walken, Léa Seydoux, Souheila Yacoub, Stellan Skarsgård, Charlotte Rampling, and Javier Bardem. Dune: Part Two earned critical acclaim and a strong enough box office return (it’s one of the highest-grossing IMAX movies of all time) for Warner Bros. and Legendary to begin development on a sequel, Dune: Messiah, which Villeneuve is already in the process of writing.
According to the film’s synopsis, “Dune: Part Two explores the mythic journey of Paul Atreides as he unites with Chani and the Fremen while on a path of revenge against the conspirators who destroyed his family. Facing a choice between the love of his life and the fate of the known universe, he endeavors to prevent a terrible future only he can foresee.”
Villeneuve directed Dune: Part Two from a screenplay he co-wrote with Jon Spaihts, based on Herbert’s Dune. Mary Parent, Cale Boyter, Patrick McCormick, Villeneuve, and Tanya Lapointe produced Dune: Part Two. Joshua Grode, Jon Spaihts, Thomas Tull, Herbert W. Gains, Brian Herbert, Byron Merritt, Kim Herbert, Richard P. Rubinstein, and John Harrison served as executive producers.
ComicBook’s Patrick Cavanaugh gave a score of 4-out-of-5 stars in his Dune: Part Two review, writing “Herbert’s Dune is not only a thrilling journey in its own right, but it also serves as an allegory exploring themes of colonialism, fanaticism, religion, imperialism, and the exploitation of natural resources. These aren’t entirely crowd-pleasing ideas, and Villeneuve largely accomplishes honoring those themes while also making for an engaging sci-fi epic. It doesn’t quite feel as awe-inspiring as the debut film, but this will ultimately work in the favor of the story, as we aren’t given arbitrarily inflated elements that would have fit within the blockbuster-oriented sensibilities of franchise filmmaking seen in so many other series. Still, the fact that such an inaccessible tome could be brought to life without having to sacrifice either the character complexities or depressing allegories found within the source material makes the two-film journey a triumph in its own right, and we can’t wait to see where Messiah will take us.”
