New Denis Villeneuve movie gets a 2026 release date. Is it Dune 3?
The next movie from Denis Villeneuve now has a release date. On Friday, Warner Bros. announced that the “Untitled Event Film” the studio had dated for December 2026 is now a “Denis Villeneuve Event Film” with Legendary Pictures.
Will Villeneuve’s new film be the final chapter in his Dune trilogy? According to Deadline’s sources, Warner Bros. and Legendary are holding the December 2026 date with “expectations that he wraps up the spectacular trilogy with Dune 3.” Dune: Part Two opened in March to universal acclaim, finishing is theatrical run with a worldwide gross of $711 million.
However, Villeneuve has explained his desire to work on another project before returning to Arrakis to complete Dune 3, aka. Dune: Messiah. In a March profile in The Hollywood Reporter, Villeneuve explained his reasoning for starting something new before Dune 3.
“I currently have four projects on the table,” Villeneuve said. “One of them is a secret project that I cannot talk about right now but that needs to see the light of day quite quickly. So it would be a good idea to do something in between projects before tackling Dune Messiah and Cleopatra.”
One of these projects could be Nuclear War: A Scenario, based on Annie Jacobsen’s nonfiction book of the same name. An April report in Deadline stated Villeneuve would likely complete Dune: Messiah before starting work on Nuclear War: A Scenario.
Villeneuve’s movie wasn’t the only project to receive a date on Warner Bros. release calendar. The studio set a March 26, 2027, date for the next Godzilla and Kong movie. In March, the fifth film in the MonsterVerse, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, exceeded expectations with an $80 million domestic opening weekend. The New Empire has grossed $570 million worldwide against a $135 million to $150 million budget.
