With a little over a week remaining before Dune: Part Two finally hits the big screens, fans are assured that it’ll be a worthy successor to the original and will be as great if not better than the first. One of the biggest attractions of the sequel involves Austin Blutler’s eye-brow-less bald villain Feyd-Rautha, whom Timothée Chalamet deemed the best character in the film, which is saying a lot.
But while the cast got along pretty well, especially Chalamet and Butler, filming in the first week was hell on Earth for all of them, with Butler recalling several people passing out from Heat Stroke.
The First Week of Filming Dune 2 Was Hell on Earth Recalled Austin Butler
It isn’t uncommon for crew members to face hellish conditions while shooting epics in the desert, with the most prominent example being the filming of Lawrence of Arabia, which lasted for 9 months. Six decades later, something similar was the case for Dune 2, as Austin Butler recalled the extreme conditions during the first week of filming leading to many crew members passing out. Austin Butler explained that it was 110 degrees, and the set became a hot microwave.
He said (via Variety),
“It was 110 degrees and so hot. I had the bald cap on, and it was between two soundstages that were just these gray boxes of 200-foot walls and sand. It became like a microwave. There were people passing out from heat stroke. And that was just my first week. It really bonds the entire crew. There’s something so humbling about being in such an uncomfortable environment.”
But it’d be reasonable to assume that these extreme situations didn’t get the better of Austin Butler or any of the crew for that matter, and fans are hopeful that it’ll only improve upon the original.
Denis Villeneuve Is Glad He Didn’t Resort to Filming Dune 1 and 2 Back to Back
While it’s common for Hollywood to go the route of filming movies of such scale back to back, following the hot and humid conditions, Denis Villeneuve had to opt for a break between Part 1 and 2. Even though he initially wanted to film them back to back, the acclaimed filmmaker expressed he is glad they didn’t end up doing that, stressing that he’d be dead by now following the extreme weather.
“Both movies were made in very harsh conditions, and it’s very physically taxing, so to have a break in between them was a blessing,” Villeneuve said. “My first thought was to shoot both movies back to back together, but now I think I would have died. It was really intense, and seeing how the world reacted to ‘Part One’ was a boost of positive energy to go back into the desert.”
Considering Villeneuve managed to do the unthinkable and adapt Dune, which for years was deemed unfilmable, it’s no wonder fans are assured he’ll once again hit it out of the park with the sequel.
Dune: Part Two will hit theatres on March 1, 2024.
