Denis Villeneuve returns 10 years later to one of the places where he filmed his film Incendies.
Denis Villeneuve has been commissioned to bring Frank Herbert's classic Dune back to the big screen. If there is something special about the novel, it is its places and locations that are as extraterrestrial as they are realistic. To give the film the necessary naturalism, the author of Blade Runner 2049 took the team to different places around the world, from the most remote desert to the Nordic seas of Norway.
One of the first settlements the team had the opportunity to address was Stadlandet in Norway, situated between the Norwegian Sea and the North Sea. This peninsular region of Norway, surrounded by fjords, was selected to set the scene for the planet Caladan where the Atreides House is located, the birthplace of the protagonist Paul Atreides. Herbert referred to Caladan as an oceanic world, hence in some sequences, the immense beaches of Stadlandet are shown with that gloomy and Nordic touch that characterizes that place.
But if there is a protagonist greater than Paul Atreides himself, it is the Arrakis desert of the planet Dune. All of them star in some of the most shocking images in the entire film. For this reason, this location had to be perfect. For this, Villeneuve selected the Liwa desert, in Abu Dhabi, where they filmed for 11 days. They had the help of the Abu Dhabi Film Commission to select the best areas to shoot the longest and widest aerial sequences in the film.
However, for the more arid scenes in the interior of Arrakis, where much of the end of the action takes place, Villeneuve turned to an old acquaintance, Wadi Rum, or the Valley of the Moon, in Jordan. Here, the filmmaker shot his film Incendies in 2010 and knew from the first moment that this location would be perfect to provide these sequences with the necessary drama.
If the film manages to have the same good reception in the United States on the day of its release in theaters and on HBO Max on October 22 as it has had it in Europe, the second part of Dune could be a reality. For that new installment, likely, Villeneuve will again have the locations of Abu Dhabi and Jordan since much of the action would take place in Arrakis again.
While that moment arrives and we can rediscover what Villeneuve has prepared for this next and possible installment, you can now enjoy Dune in cinemas and discover how Jason Momoa, Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac, Zendaya, Javier Bardem and Josh Brolin give life to some of the protagonists of Herbert's work.