Fresh off a very successful opening weekend for The Batman, star Robert Pattinson has opened up about other blockbuster franchises he would be interested in being involved with, saying he'd like to work on Dune 2. After his initial break-out roles in films like Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and most notably as heartthrob Edward Cullen in the Twilight franchise, Pattinson eschewed blockbuster fare for much darker, smaller films with acclaimed directors like Claire Denis, Robert Eggers, and the Safdie Brothers. He's marked his return to bigger budgets by appearing in Christopher Nolan's mind-boggler Tenet before donning Batman's iconic cowl.
Dune 2 starts filming this summer and has several plum roles yet to be filled. To properly adapt Frank Herbert's massive sci-fi epic, it needed to be split into two parts. The first film establishes just a few of the houses vying for control over the desert planet Arrakis, which is the prime source for the galaxy's most important and powerful commodity, a mind-altering substance called spice that allows faster than light travel. The film's hero is Timothée Chalamet's Paul, heir to the house Atreides, who has visions of leading a messianic uprising and must overcome great obstacles to achieve his destiny. The sequel to the Oscar-nominated Denis Villeneuve film is eyeing 2023 for a release date.
Pattinson's return to blockbusters seems to be much more driven by the talent behind the camera than the size of the paycheck. In the case of The Batman, initial interest became more of an obsession for Pattinson after Ben Affleck left the film and it wound up in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes director Matt Reeves's hands.
Having achieved half of his goal by working with Reeves on The Batman, that only leaves working with the acclaimed French-Canadian filmmaker Villeneuve, who made Sicario in addition to Dune. -Variety
