Dune (Film Series)

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About

Dune, titled onscreen as Dune: Part One, is a 2021 film adaptation of Frank Herbert's science fiction novel of the same name. The film follows the journey of Paul Atreides, the young heir of House Atreides, during a conflict over the desert planet Arrakis. Directed by Denis Villeneuve, the film stars Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac and Zendaya, among others.

History

The development of Dune began in 2008 at Paramount Pictures. The studio later dropped the film in 2011.^[1]

Five years later, Legendary Pictures acquired the rights to the film and began development. In 2017, Frank Herbert's son confirmed Denis Villeneuve would direct the adaptation. On January 31st, 2017, he tweeted, ^[2] "It's official -- Legendary Pictures has signed the very talented Denis Villeneuve to direct the exciting new DUNE series film project." On April 14th, 2020, Vanity Fair^[3] published the first look of the film, sharing photographs of the film.

On September 9th, 2020, the official trailer was posted on the Warner Bros. Pictures official YouTube^[5] channel, earning 38 million views in one year (shown below).

On October 5th, 2020, Warner Bros. announced that they were delaying _Dune_'s release from December 2020 to October 1st, 2021.^[4]

On July 22nd, 2021, the main trailer for the film was posted on the official Warner Bros Pictures YouTube^[6] channel, earning 24 million views in three months (shown below, left). On October 7th, the final trailer for the film premiered^[7] (shown below), accumulating over 3.5 million views in three weeks.

The movie premiered in Venice on September 3rd, 2021, and was subsequently released in various other territories over the following weeks. After being released internationally, the movie was premiered in North America on October 21st, 2021.

On October 26th, 2021, the sequel Dune: Part Two was officially announced.^[8]

Reception

The film was met with a positive response from critics and audiences. As of October 28th, 2021, the film maintained an 8.3 user score on IMDb^[9] with over 210,000 ratings, an 8.2 user score on Metacritic^[10] with over 670 ratings and an audience score of 91 percent on Rotten Tomatoes^[11] with over 2,500 reviews. On Metacritic, the film had a 74 average critic score based on 63 reviews, and on Rotten Tomatoes, Dune maintained an 84 percent critic score with 352 reviews.

On social media, initial fan reactions were favorable. for example, on October 22nd, YouTuber^[12] Cr1tikal posted Moist Meter review of the film, giving the film a 90 percent rating.

Fandom

The first look footage from the film, released in April 2020, received positive reactions, inspiring memes and jokes.

Following the international release of the film, Dune inspired memes in the territories it was released,^[13]^[14] some of which received further spread following the U.S. release (example shown below, left).

The U.S. release of Dune was followed by a massive influx of memes referencing the film. For example, on October 24th, 2021, Twitter^[15] user @meowmeowmia posted a Shrek edit of the movie's poster, with the tweet gaining over 21,000 retweets and 175,800 likes in five days (shown below, center). A quote tweet^[16] of the poster by Zendaya gained additional 19,500 retweets and 303,700 likes.

Joined the Cast of Dune

Joined the Cast of Dune refers to jokes about the star-studded cast of Denis Villeneuve's remake of the science fiction film Dune. As multiple major casting announcements were released over the course of several weeks in the beginning of 2019, Twitter users began to joke about humorous further additions to the cast.

Zendaya and Chalamet Stare

Zendaya and Chalamet Stare refers to a video clip created by Entertainment Weekly featuring Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya in which the two follow a camera with their eyes as it swings around them. Meant to promote the film Dune, the clip was joked about as if the two actors were judging the poster.