‘Dune: Part Two’ to Debut Two Weeks Earlier in November 2023

“Dune: Part Two” is coming to theaters sooner than expected.

It was revealed on Tuesday that the highly anticipated sequel to Denis Villeneuve‘s sci-fi epic will hit theaters on Nov. 3, 2023, instead of Nov. 17, 2023. “Dune” has taken the previous spot of Marvel’s “Blade,” which was delayed on Tuesday to Sept. 6, 2024.

Villeneuve returns to direct “Dune: Part Two,” with a star-studded cast that includes Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Josh Brolin, Stellan Skarsgård, Dave Bautista, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Zendaya, Charlotte Rampling, Javier Bardem, Florence Pugh, Austin Butler, Christopher Walken and Léa Seydoux. Villeneuve, Jon Spaihts and Eric Roth penned the screenplay.

Villeneuve’s first “Dune” movie was released in October 2021 and earned over $400 million at the box office worldwide, in addition to scoring six Oscars. “Dune: Part Two” will cover the second half of Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel, in which protagonist Paul Atreides (Chalamet) joins forces with the Fremen to avenge his family. New characters will include Princess Irulan (Pugh), Harkonnen heir Feyd-Rautha (Butler), Shaddam IV (Walken) and Lady Margot (Seydoux).

Before the second film was officially greenlit, Villeneuve told Variety at the Toronto Film Festival in 2021 that a sequel would be “an insane playground for me.”

“It’s going to be just like pure cinematic pleasure for the second part,” Villeneuve said. “I don’t want to speak for everybody on the team, but I will say that we really created on this movie a feeling of family and to re-unify everybody again together, that would be paradise.”

“Dune: Part Two” started production on July 18.